We were interrupted in this class, with a school wide activity. When we returned to classwork, Devon was very focused on packing up her office. There was no getting her to focus on computer work, so I assisted her in sorting and packing up her artwork and supplies.
Devon was focused on cleaning up and packing her stuff, so while she worked, I told her the stories of the remaining planets in the solar system, and the Greek/Roman gods for which each is named. I have written up notes on each and include them here:
We continued our lesson starting with Saturn. Saturn the planet is also the root for Saturday. As the sixth planet – it is a gas giant (as is Jupiter) but is most well known for it’s impressive rings.
Saturn is the Roman translation of Cronus, who married the titan Rhea. They had a total of six children,( Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, Hades, Hestia, Demeter, Chiron) but Cronus had a bad habit of eating his newborn children, to prevent them from one day overthrowing him as king of the gods. Finally, at the birth of her last child, Rhea tricked him into swallowing a rock instead. Cronus was forced to regurgitate his children by Zeus, who then beat his father with the help of his brothers and sisters. Saturn / Cronus was a favorite of the Romans as the god of agriculture, and his reign is called the golden age of plenty and peace. Zeus and his two brothers Poseidon and Hades drew lots to determine which god would rule over the domains of Cronus (Sky, Sea, and Underworld)
The next planet is Uranus – Father of Cronus and the titans. He was the son of Chaos – making him a primordial god of heavenly light and upper air .– he is also the mate of Gaia (earth) but hated all his children (including the Titans, Cyclopes, Furies, and Aphrodite). How Aphrodite got mixed up with this group is curious – and Devon stopped working to question that relationship.
As a planet it is Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It has the third-largest planetary radius and fourth-largest planetary mass in the Solar System.
The last planet is Neptune – Greek god Poseidon – brother of Zeus, who pulled the middle straw, and therefore rules the seas. He is prominent in many mythological stories, especially the Homer’s Odyssey. My favorite, however, is when he fell in love with a nymph (mermaid), who feared him. So Poseidon sent a dolphin to convince the nymph to overcome her fear, and allow the god to court her.
Neptune the Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. It is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. I explained the difference in size and mass to Devon.
Devon and I looked up the list of the planets by size and compared it to a list by Mass. We were surprised to see that the lists were different – and Uranus and Neptune were reversed in the lists.
Extra Practice: Devon got 100 % on todays test dealing with fractions. I 'm very proud of her consistent determination to succeed in math. She has made great strides when compared to the beginning of this year.
Fast Forward
English - Introduce prepositions - come before a noun or pronoun and relates it to another word in the sentence, for example, The class writes articles for the newspaper. (for the newspaper) is a prepositional phrase that relates to articles. Complete exercises, then explain/give examples for combining sentences such as, Mt. Etna is a volcano. It is active. Write - Mt. Etna is an active volcano. Complete exercises. Devon did well combining sentences, but had a little trouble with prepositions (most students do). She has made a lot of progress this year, and I've enjoyed working with her.
I was a substitue teacher today. I used the class to test Devon on her computer skills. As a project, II asked her to create a powerpoint about her camp experience. She found the pictures in the iphoto album she had created previously, She also captured some images from the camp website to use in this project. Once she had decided on the layout style and color, she created a very good powerpoint presentation that exemplified her camp experience. She highlighted friends she made and nurtured over the years, the activities she is fond of , and the beautiful sights she associates with the Alford Lake camp. She ably complied with every request I made and accomplish every task I asked her to do. well done.
During this class Devon decided on a sound tract for the video, and learned how to apply the sound tract to the stop action video clips she had edited together last week. We found a tutorial video, online, that she watched to learn how to do this and also how to work with the sound tract. The song that she picked was longer than the show, and started with a slow intro that was not good for her show, so she edited the length of the musical piece to fit the length of her claymation show. She picked the style and color of the credit slides at the start and end of the show. After some conversation and thought, she picked a Title for the piece, just before the end of class.
To help Devon remember the names and order of the Planets, I gave her a little background in the Greek (and later Roman) myths that provided the names. We reviewed the origin of Hermes, the winged messenger and god of roads and pathways. I explained to Devon that when the Roman Empire became powerful, they took the Greek myths, and changed the names. We reviewed some other gods who had their names changed by the Romans. So we discussed how the small, hot planet was named for Mercury. We then looked up Aphrodite, and her history - and wondered on how she became Venus and then the second planet was named for her. We quickly looked at Earth, and then jumped to Mars, the Roman name for the god Ares. We laughed at how this was the god of war, who had a sons named Fear (Phobos) and terror (Deimos), a sister named discord (Enyo). Ares was associated with war, but only the losing side. We then related that history to the name of the fourth planet. The session ended with beginning to explore Zeus who is also Jupiter - the fifth planet. We did examine the red spot of Jupiter as the 300 year old storm.
Extra Practice: Devon required little assistance completing her assignment today. She did very well with mixed fractions , converting fractions, and finding least to greatest.
