Kellan wrote sentences for his spelling words. We read The Watsons Go to Birmingham and discussed it.

I read Bud, Not Buddy, and we discussed it.

Richard used the twist markers to practice his spelling words and words ending in se. He spelled his words from jumbled words. He read books with words he can read.

Kaitlin wrote her spelling words in her dictionary. We read 1984 and discussed it.

JPaul was absent today. The class time was used to update grades in Veracross.

I substituted for Joshua's German class (my student Aiden was absent). Joshua worked independently on his assignment online. We also discussed a few math problems he was curious about.

Today Joshua and I began Unit 3, the last unit in the AP Precalculus curriculum. This section discussed functions which have repetitive behavior. We discussed that the period/cycle of the graph represents the length from one y-value height to the other. Then we related this to a circle and we recalled that a circle is 360 degrees. In radians that converts to 2pi. We worked on converting degrees to radians and radians to degrees.

Ben and I had a great class today. At first he was slow to start, but we had a good convo about music and computer programming, and he was ready to work after that. I told him we haven't been very productive lately, he agreed and said that his mom had mentioned it also and that he needs to work in math class. I wrote some review problems on the board and Ben willingly attempted them. He did a great job recalling exponent properties. He remembered anything to the power of 0 equals 1. He recalled how to multiply like bases (by adding their powers). He needed a reminder about the negative exponents and then was able to complete the problem correctly. Ben mentioned that to get to the courses he needs in college he needs to start doing better in math. I told him he can do it, it's not a matter of ability but just putting one foot in front of the other.

We reviewed the important elements of descriptive writing and discussed that some ways to organize writing include: chronological (time), spatial (location), and order of importance. Austin shared his ideas for how he might grab the reader's interest using a "hook." He then worked on an activity sheet that tasked him with correcting errors with pronouns and another activity which tasked him with correcting spelling errors. Austin did well on the activity but requested assistance with one sentence he found challenging and for which I explained the way to approach understanding it better. Austin complained of a sore throat so I read several short chapters in the novel by Louis Sachar, which is about a fifth-grade bully named Bradley whose behavior improves after intervention from a school counselor. Austin has been enjoying the book and recalled several changes in the protagonist's behavior over the course of different events and situations. He correctly recalled terms (leitmotif - a dominant, recurring theme) and figurative language the author used - and was able to explain how it enriched the language and story elements. I explained a writing project I hope to work on with Austin once he finishes the book, and he seemed interested to work on it. We expect to be finished with the novel in the next 2-3 weeks as there are about 50 pages left.

Today PJ and I continued working with 1 step equations. He's able to do some of the simpler problems in his head, but I am trying to get PJ to develop the skill set of showing his work/steps. We started out solving problems like 8+x=15. We practiced showing -8 on both sides. Then PJ crossed out the 8s and evaluated 15-8 to get 7. Then I showed PJ how to check his solutions by substituting his answer back in to the original equation. We practiced adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Next we will work on 2 step equations.