Hunter and I discussed Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado" today, but he was unable to give me a correct summary because he said he struggled with the story. He could not understand it. So, I focused on reading comprehension strategies today. We read a marine mammal rescue story, annotating and underlining as we read, and then Hunter answered questions about main idea identification, inferences, and vocabulary. The first is a weakness, while the other two are his strengths. We will focus on developing reading skills in upcoming sessions.
He also wrote journal 3 on Penzu.com today.

Took a look and discussed the first River valley civilizations. Added additional vocabulary words to our chapter 1 list and prepared the blueprint for assessment 1.

I graded the homework and we discussed his mistakes. We started reviewing for a Ch. 1 test. We discussed how math describes physical phenomenon such as impact and momentum that he can use in football. We also discussed how the brain creates images and connects for learning and how that can help him improve his learning performance.

We went through the life and death of a star once again, and starting to look into the idea of black holes. We touched the basics of black holes, and then went into looking at different properties of planets (we have done Mercury and Venus).

Reviewed section 1on historical methods. Began discussion on the conditions necessary for civilization to develop

We covered Ch. 1-4 Properties of Real Numbers (Commutative, Associative), 1-5 Adding and Subtracting Real Numbers (Including number lines), 1-6 Multiplying and Dividing Real Numbers (Multiplicative inverse and dividing by fractions), and 1-7 The Distributive Property. I graded his HW and assigned a new HW.

We covered sections 1-1 Variables and Expressions, 1-2 Order of Operations and Evaluating Expressions, and 1-3 Real Numbers and the Number Line. I assigned HW.

We went over the concepts in Ch. 1-8 Introduction to Equations and 1-9 Using Tables to Solve Equations. I graded the HW.

Today, Hunter worked on his second entry in his Penzu writing journal. He developed a character--a giant--in creative writing. His first draft only contained sight details, and we focused on improving the draft and adding sensory details involving smell, sound, and touch, in order to truly bring his giant to life. After this writing workshop, we read "The Necklace" by Guy de Maupassant.

Introduction to archaeological and anthropological dating and methods.