Hunter and I made study cards for vocabulary we encountered in reading Mark Twain's "Advice to Youth". We added new vocabulary for "The Book Thief" and looked at various pre-reading activities. We began vocabulary for the first section of the book and discussed personification and Death personified, the narrator of the story. We discussed events happening at the time of the story, World War II and Nazi Germany. We watched a short video from the National Holocaust Memorial about book burning by the Nazis in 1933 and added the word "genocide"" to our vocabulary list. I printed, and we discussed an Anticiipation Guide, which will direct Hunter and make him predict what he might read about in the book.
Hunter took the vocabulary quiz today, which was matching. I will grade it tonight. We discussed possbile choices for a novel to read for the literature portion of class and decided upon "The Book Thief". We edited the rough draft of Hunter's essay and discussed ways to add to it. Ideas included the subject of an op ed piece from the newspaper which compared Kaepernick to MLK Jr. and protests in American history which formed the basis of our nation - from the American Revolution to the Vietnam War and so on.... We also discussed Vice President Pence leaving the football game after the team "took the knee" during the National Anthem.
To help Hunter better understand where the power comes from in his Chevy truck, he explores the meaning of a four stroke engine. We first research what happens during each of the four strokes: Intake, Compression, Power, and Exhaust. Secondly, we view two animated videos that more thoroughly depict this process. Lastly, we take a look at the difference between the fuel and diesel engines. Good session.
Hunter continued with the economics lowdown lesson - College Choice 101 and took the follow-up quiz which asked about student loan pay-off. Afterwards, he played "Spent" - an interactive simulation game ( http://playspent.org/html/) where Hunter spent his savings within 30 days making decisions and dealing with various expenses as they come. He had options for emergency cash and, should he run out too soon, he was encouraged to try again and make better decisions to make the money last longer. This game was from the Federal Reserve Bank fo St. Louis.
Today we proceeded with the St. Louis Federal Reserve curriculum, EconLowdown. This lesson was about credit. Hunter was presented with a credit card disclosure statement and evaluated it and then proceeded to help a fictional character to use a credit card statement and disclosure to determine how long it would take to pay off the balance by making changes to the monthly payment.
Hunter adds the necessary electrical symbols to his dream home floor plan. These represent the placement in each room of the electrical wall outlets and the lights and switches to operate them. We closed this period talking about the importance of a clean car air filter added during the oil change process. Why?? Because the mixture of gas to air in the combustion chamber is one part fuel to 15 parts air. Good session
We used the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank's Economics curriculum, EconLowdown to create a budget for a fictional college student and then created one for Hunter.
The remainder of all rooms are added to Hunter's floor plan. He also adds windows, doors, and hallways. Lastly, some research is done on trying to solve Hunter's problem with a broken gas gauge in his truck. He has already run out of gas once and is seeking alternative options to repairing this situation. Good session.
Hunter came to class today with an impressive first draft/start (homework) to his essay. I was very surprised, impressed and proud of him. Not only was it a good attempt, but it was organized, and of a decent quantity. He was admittedly embarrassed at Monday's submission. We rewrote the essay today and Hunter typed it onto a Word document on the computer. We discussed replacing words with better/stronger words and editing it in the next week to perfect it. We used the last few minutes of class to review vocabulary words to prepare for next Tuesday's Quiz.
I gave Hunter practice exercises on Direct Variation, Absolute Value Equations, and Parent Functions for a quiz grade. He could use his books and notes. He was able to work fairly independently, but would ask me for help periodically. Overall, he solved the problems very well.
