Ben had a quiz today. We started class by reviewing the problems that were going to be on the quiz, to see if he had any questions. I gave Ben a challenge problem with a fraction in it. He had difficulty with it but after going through it, I realized his confusion wasn't with the Absolute Value concept, it was just the fraction part that threw him off. We will have to go back and review fractions at some point, so he can have the confidence to work with them. But I assured him his quiz would not include fractions. During his quiz, he got distracted quite a bit. I redirected him and he got back to work. He completed the quiz just as the bell rang. I reviewed it quickly and he got a 100%! I was really proud of how he was working through the problems.

I read about Temple Grandin, and we discussed the book.

Richard took his spelling test with words and sentences. He read books with words he can read. With letter tiles, he read words with digraphs (sh, th, ch, wh, ph) and blends (cl, dr, bl, cr).

Today's lesson was a review for JPaul, but it was good to see concepts he hasn't seen in a while. Today we reviewed the various techniques for solving quadratic equations. We first practiced solving by factoring. We reviewed the techniques for trinomials, greatest common factor, and difference of squares. Then we solved by using the square root method. I showed JPaul when we can and cannot use those two methods. JPaul did a great job recalling the square root properties.

We continued our study of Sir Issac Newton (interspersed with math problems as incentive). We learned that Issac Newton improved the design of the telescope while teaching at Cambridge and his introduction to the Royal Society of London. To conclude, we review prefixes, root words, and suffix. I introduced the prefix dis-, the root word duct, and the suffix -est.

I began with visual and auditory drills, followed by a several nonsense word fluency lists (CVC and VC-e words). Sasha struggles to decode VC-e words. We reviewed the definition of a syllable and Sasha correctly identified closed, open and silent-e syllables. We reviewed Sasha's spelling word list from school (oi and oy words), copied the words, used two words in a sentence, illustrated the sentence, and made flash cards to study at home. Sasha had an incomplete worksheet from school (VC-e and consonant-le words); we completed the work. To conclude, Sasha read a passage from A-Z Razz Kids (a website from school) and successfully answered all comprehension questions.

Pierce and I co-read two chapters of Who Was Isaac Newton. It was fascinating to learn what Newton accomplished during the plague of the mid-1600s, including the invention of calculus, the discovery of the light theory, and the laws of motion. Pierce reads with good fluency and demonstrates excellent retention of details. In between reading chapters, Pierce completed math problems on the white board. I am impressed with his enthusiasm for math. To conclude, we reviewed morphology learned and I taught the prefix mis, the root dict, and the suffix er.

Matthew and I met on Teams today. We continued working with solving Absolute value equations. We reviewed the steps to find the solution. This time we discussed problems that have extraneous solutions (no real solutions). Matthew and I determined that sometimes when the problem begins with two terms on the right, the algebra sometimes gives us a solution that when is checked does not actually work. This means when we see these problem types, we will have to check our solutions to make sure that they aren't extraneous.

Joshua went home early today. The class time was used to complete the progress check problems.

Today PJ and I worked on word problems. I was super impressed with PJ's understanding of this content, as we have not done word problems together of this caliber. We covered problems like: Tony wants to rent a car for $230 flat fee and then $0.30 per mile. Write an expression to represent the amount Tony would pay. Then use that expression to determine how much Tony will pay if he drives the car 120 miles. PJ wrote 230+m0.30, then he corrected himself to 230+0.30m! High Five! Then he knew to substitue in 120 for the m. He wrote 230+0.30120. I told him that looked like the 0.30 and the 120 were all one number. He suggested parenthesis 230+0.30(120), I said YES PJ! At first he thought we stop there. But when I reminded him that the question asked how much total Tony would pay, he was able to simplify to $266. We did a few other word problems and PJ did a great job.