Aiden has read up to page 63 in the book Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck. We had a very informative discussion about the main characters: who they are and what they represent. First, we discussed the setting of the Great Depression and the economic and social repercussions wrought by this historic event.

I asked Aiden to name and describe the two main characters: Lennie and George. He has a good understanding of Lennie and George's relationship. The questions Aiden raised are important and thoughtful: 1) What do you do if a special needs person is a threat to herself/himself or society? 2) If you are the caretaker of a special needs person, how much can you help that person before he/she cannot be helped? We discussed how George cares for Lennie and often complains about it, but the two friends are devoted to one another. Lennie loves to pet soft things, but does not know his own strength and often accidentally kills the very thing he's petting.

We discussed the relationship between Candy and his old dog. We talked about Candy feeling older and worrying about his position on the ranch and Candy's dog being put down because he was suffering. We talked about Slim, Curley, and Curley's wife. Aiden then asked to keep reading for the remainder of the class. I told Aiden that he is very intelligent and look forward to discussing more of the book with him!

Chapter 2 The Financial Plan – We examined the six component which is a plan for retirement. We discovered that retirement planning involves determining how much money to save for retirement every year and how to invest that money. We looked at the ways for accumulating wealth without paying taxes until we retire.

Student took the MAT assessment.

Testing

2-7 Problem Solving: Guess, Check, Revise – We practiced the Guess, Check, Revise problem-solving strategy on real-world problems. Then we learned that a guess is a reasonable trial solution. We learned that estimating our answers will help us determine if our answers to equations are reasonable or not.
Assignment: Complete problems assigned for homework.

No class due to MAPP testing.

No class today due to MAPP Testing..

Compound Interest: Definition, Formula, and Calculations. Definition/effect of number of compounding periods,
"rolling snowball" interest process, concept of Annual Percentage Yield APY. Comparison of advantages of Compound Interest vs Simple Interest. Exponential growth of Interest and Balance with compounding. During today's session on Compound Interest, Aiden clearly understood the concept and why compounding is financially more beneficial than Simple Interest.

Method of creating an MS Powerpoint Presentation. Instructions and demonstration of how to create an MS Powerpoint presentation. Using MS Office 365, student created a powerpoint presentation titled "Panda Low IQ" and learned how to create titles, embed pictures /images into slides, and to write text using appropriate font size and phrases. The method of saving the MS Powerpt. presentation as a file and how to send as an attachment to an email was taught.

Distance, speed, and time graphs and calculations. Preparation for Physics exam at King's Academy. Explanation of distance calculations using constant speed and time, displacement, and
physical meaning of straight lines on various Distance vs Time graphs. Method of calculating average speed during a given time interval.