Pierce and I continued reading the book "Who Was Issac Newton?" and completed chapters 7-10. Pierce learned about Newton's collaborations with his peers, such as Robert Hooke, Christopher Wren, and Edmund Halley. We reviewed unfamiliar vocabulary in the text: scholar, minister, alchemy, ellipse, orbit, proof, Paliment, and principle. Pierce completed the following math activities: addition with four digits, word problems (what year will Halley's comet return? How old will you be when Halley's comet returns? How old will I be?), and multiplication tables. We will finish the book in the next session. I will find a novel with a math theme for our next co-read.
To begin, we went through Sasha's folder. She made flashcards for her spelling words (oy and oi words). Sasha highlighted the vowel team on each card, and we observed that oy is found at the end of a word or syllable, while oi is most often found at the beginning or middle of a word. I helped Sasha finish a worksheet from school on the spelling list. We went to Sasha's school website (Razz Kids) to read a comprehension passage online. Sasha read with reasonable fluency and answered the comprehension questions correctly. Sasha read an oral reading fluency passage to me three times (again, the passage was from school; she is supposed to read it to an adult twelve times over the week). To conclude, we went outside to practice her spelling words while bouncing a ball.
Assignment
none
Session Minutes
60
Minutes Student Attended
60
Lesson Comments
Sasha did poorly on last week's spelling test (40%). I don't know if she is studying at home, but one session with me is insufficient to make progress. In addition, I am curious when (or if) Sasha will get psycho-educational testing through the school system. If diagnosed with dyslexia and ADHD (as I suspect is appropriate), she might receive accommodations at school.
To begin, we went through Reid's school folder. Reid made flashcards for the week, wrote three sentences with three of the words, and edited his work using CAPS (self-checking for capitalization, appearance, punctuation, and spelling). Next, I reviewed the definition of a sentence: it has an "actor" and an "action" and is a complete thought. Using a worksheet I prepared for Reid about the NBA, he identified fragments and entire sentences. He corrected the fragments to make complete sentences. To conclude, we went outside to practice his spelling deck while playing basketball.
Today JPaul and I learned how to apply the Quadratic formula to solve quadratic equations. This is a review from Algebra 1, however JPaul said he has never seen the formula. So we Youtube'd a silly video/song to help him remember the formula. Then we looked at skill based questions. I reminded JPaul in order to use the formula, the equation must be set = to 0 first. He identified a,b,and c and was able to substitute their values into the formula and simplify correctly. Next, we looked at application problems. I showed JPaul how, if a golfball is hit and follows trajectory of a parabola upside-down. I explained to him where each coefficient comes from and how it affects the equation. We used the formula to find how long the ball is in the air for.
