In this activity, Will worked on finance problems, where he had to determine future value and present value of investments using the TVM program on his calculator.

We had a very good discussion about the section Will read for homework today. Will had a good understanding of the actions in the text, but he shared that the Billy Deel section made him uncomfortable. We talked a bit about his feelings about reading things that made him uncomfortable. Will shared that he knows that in college he might have to read and discuss things that he might not normally read, and that he believed he could still learn from that even though he didn’t like it. He had a very mature attitude about this, and it was good for him to discuss this with me. Next, we reviewed the comprehension questions he worked on at home. He demonstrated a good understanding of how the characters in the memoir have changed and grown in the story thus far. After completing our novel work, he did a quick assessment on digital life based on last week’s discussions. Then he read an article about Generation Z and social media. For homework, Will is going to read pages 94-125 and respond to a series of 6 comprehension questions.

I introduced Will to the property of rational functions that produces discontinuities in their graphs when the denominator is zero. I showed him the procedure of factoring the denominators of rational functions and setting each factor equal to zero. We did several problems requiring him to factor the denominators if possible and calculate the values of x where there would be a discontinuity in the graphs of the functions. Where it was not possible to factor the denominator or set it equal to zero, I showed him the case where there was no discontinuity. There was no assignment.

Friday Apr 26, 2019
11:00 - 12:00; 12:30-1:30 120 min. -
Photography:
Photoshop puppet warp tool -
I took some photos of Will, and we used them to use Photoshop. First Will was instructed to change the color of his shirt. He practiced using the magic wand and paint bucket tool. He also reviewed how to change the color of the paint used in the paint bucket tool. We then used the puppet warp tool to move portions of the photos. This tool allowed Will to move the arms and legs of the photo subject.

In this activity, we worked on compound interest problems using the TMV program on the graphing calculator.

Will completed the test on rational exponents and radical equations. Problems he solved included solving radical equations and checking for extraneous solutions. He also simplified equations with variable bases raised to rational exponents. Will earned a perfect score of 100%. There was no assignment.

Will demonstrated a great depth of understanding of the themes and central ideas of the novel, “The Glass Castle”. When questioned, he always starts with the literal, however, when asked to delve deeper, he is absolutely on target with his understanding of the themes and central conflicts. While discussing character motivations, he shared that he thought the “father cared too much, but the mom doesn’t care enough. ” He accurately described the father figure as “active and always looking for the next opportunity”, while he described the mother in the story as being “lazy” and “not looking after her kids.” While he described the parents as not caring, he still was able to consider the “good” in them giving the example that they taught their children literature, reading and math. We had a great discussion as to whether it was more important to take care of the “physical” verses “emotional” when raising children, with Will deciding that it was important to do both. Our literary conversation was outstanding, and I was so impressed by the depth of his understanding. He has grown so much! After completing our novel work, we continued our look at media literacy through a discussion about social media and the problems associated with portraying perfection in the on-line community. For homework, Will is going to read up to page 93 and answer questions. We talked about time management and divided up the weekend homework into manageable chunks. His goal is to complete his homework by Friday afternoon, so that he can enjoy his Friday evening and not worry about homework while he was working over the weekend. I am also encouraging him to set limits on time in order to prevent himself from overthinking work and making it harder on himself. He continues to work on independence, and I couldn’t be happier for him.

In this session, Will used both compound interest and continuous interest to solve various investment problems.

Will reviewed the 2 questions he responded to about Part One of “The Glass Castle”. He was able to articulate the differences between Jeanette and her mom. He shared that Jeanette wanted to help her mom, but her mom was happy with her life and didn’t want help. We then discussed her purpose for writing the memoir, and how being truthful about your past frees you from having to hide it anymore and helps you to accept the things that happened to you. Next, we reviewed the reading he did for homework, annotated the section about the glass castle, and discussed the use of the “glass castle” as an extended metaphor to symbolize childhood and future dreams left unfulfilled. After completing the novel work, we returned to our unit on media literacy. After reviewing the definition of a “digital footprint”, Will began to explore his own digital footprint. For homework, Will is going to read pages 32-61 and answer 6 questions about the reading. He did an awesome job today!

In this session, Will continued to work on compound and continuous interest rate problems. We are also going to be using TVM program on the graphing calculator to solve these very same problems.