I read The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, and we discussed it.

Richard practiced his spelling words with magnetic letters. We played Roll and Read to review CVVC words and CVCe words. He read books with words he can read.

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

JPaul has one more test to take before he graduates. Today we reviewed for that test. We discussed reference angles, trig ratios, and the unit circle. JPaul did impressively well considering he hasn't been to class in a while. He was able to recall a lot. We practiced the problems that involved determining which quadrant we were in before setting up and solving the triangle. Those he found most challenging. However, he was able to get through and do them correctly.

Today Andrew and I began by reviewing some of the SAT problems he had for practice while I was gone. We discussed similarity, properties of parallelograms, and vertical angle theorem. Then we moved back into our Geometry content on Volume. We discussed how volume represents the amount of space on the inside of a 3D figure. We started with cylinder and derived its formula. Andrew recognized the top is a circle so the formula is Pi*r^2. Then we discussed that the volume would then be the area of a circle times its height. I showed him how it doesn't matter if the base is a circle, triangle, square, etc. The formula for the volume will always be the area of the base times its height.

While I was out, I gave Aiden some practice problems on area and circumference. They were surprisingly challenging. Aiden did really well on them, though he told me he freaked out at first. For example, he was given the circumference of a circle and asked to find the area. He had to work backwards to find the radius, then use that to find the area. He did great! One question asked Aiden, "If given the area, how can you find the radius?" Aiden wrote, "First we would divide by pi and then divide by 2." The first part was correct, but it opened up a discussion of why we don't divide by two. I showed him with an example. I gave him the Area of a circle as 254.469 ft. We divided by pi to get r^2=81. Then I explained to him how dividing by 2 would not solve for r. We discussed inverse operations. I asked him "What is the inverse of squaring?" He thought about it and said, "that line thingy!!!" He was right, the square root is what he was looking for. He has not had thorough practice with radicals/roots, yet the text expects him to understand it in this chapter. We discussed Sqrt(49)=7, Sqrt(100)=10 and why, because 7^2=49 and 10^2=100. I could relate to why he said we would take "half", showed him that we are not quite "halving" anything, but we ARE thinking about what times itself would give us that value. It seemed to click with him. Our next section is on cross sections. We did not have time to dive into the lesson, so I just gave him an introduction on the board. I drew a picture of a cylinder and asked Aiden to consider if we sliced it horizontally with a piece of paper, what shape would it create on the paper? Having a visual aid helped him to see that it would form a circle. Then I asked him to consider if we sliced it vertically. This was a bit more challenging to "see". I gave him the example of a coke can. If we sliced it top to bottom and opened it up, what shape would we see on both sides. He then decided it would be a rectangle. So we defined cross section as the shape created when a figure is cut by a plane.

This is our second session today. Matthew had a few more questions before he was ready to take the test. We reviewed and then he began. He worked diligently all period. When he finished we reviewed the problems. He got an A. It was so nice working with Matthew this year. I hope to keep in touch.

Today was our last day together before Joshua takes his AP exam today. I am confident he is ready. I answered some last minute questions he had. We reviewed the formulas he is supposed to have memorized. He is capable of getting a 5. I am excited for him to take it and report back to me.

Today Ben and I worked on exponents. This is a review for Ben. When I showed him the problems he did not recall what to do. We reviewed the properties of multiplying like bases. I explained to him WHY we add the powers. Then we applied these skills to a problem. Ben struggled a bit, but he got through it. We tried multiple problems to make sure he understood what to do.

Christopher was absent today.