Today, Marcos wrote about Mother's Day. Tell why you love your mom.
Explain how you know your mom loves you.Tell how you know your mother loves being a mom. Write about some important things you have learned from your mom (favorite things about mom).
What are some things you can do to make your mom’s life easier?
What do you think is the hardest part about being a mom? and more... Marcos wrote and we finished a lovely card for Marcos' mom.

Student absent.

Marcos was absent today.

We spent the majority of our time correcting Marcos' homework. I had him work on the board. I reminded him of the rules for adding/subtracting radicals - you can only add and subtract them if their radicands are equal. You can, however, multiply them if the radicands are unlike. After working through many of them, I could tell that Marcos understood the rules better, and he was able to do more challenging problems.
I introduced Graphing Square Root Functions. The radicand in a square root function cannot be negative, because we cannot take the square root of a negative number. This determines the domain of the function. We also looked at how adding and subtracting a constant under the radicand, as well as outside the radicand, shifts the graph up, down, left, or right. Marcos's assignment is p. 640 (2-28 even).

This week was vegan week. Marcos and I made vegan cookies today. I explained to Marcos what vegan was and which ingredients we needed to substitute in order to make it vegan. We used pumpkin in place of eggs and almond flour. Marcos did great and his cookies were amazing.

Marcos is a very astute reader of Ayn Rand. As we continued charting the development of the symbol/motif of "light",Marcos was quick to note that the house Equality and Liberty discovered has floor to ceiling windows bathing their new found existence and newly discovered individualism in physical and metaphorical light. We then examined the specific language "thy will be done" spoken by Liberty in response to Equality's credo of the self, noting how the author elevates her philosophy to religious dimensions by using the words of the Lord's Prayer from the New Testament. Last, and similarly, the author describes their new life in the Unchartered Forest as an almost utopian Paradise . Marcos again discerned the reverse of the biblical story i.e. here the characters return to Eden rather than being evicted for committing a sin. I distributed a glossary I prepared of Rand's terminology such as "collectivism" , egoism, altruism," and we discussed those divergent views in terms of society today. For homework, I assigned completing the novel, Chapters 11 and 12, and reading the supplemental material on the myth of Prometheus as it directly bears on the novel's conclusion.

Marcos repaired a measuring rod that he made last session. He replaced the wooden dowel rod with a metal one that will last forever.

A radical is not simplified if there is a radical left in the denominator. To eliminate a radical in the denominator, we must rationalize the denominator, which means to multiply the numerator and the denominator by the square root that is in the denominator. If you have a binomial with a square root, multiply by the conjugate. The conjugate is the binomial with the opposite sign between the two terms.
To solve Radical Equations, isolate the radical, then square both sides. Squaring both sides creates a new equation. The solutions to the new equation will not always be solutions of the original equation. Such solutions are called extraneous solutions. In order to find the extraneous solutions, put the equations back into the original equation and see if they work.
Marcos's assignment is p.625 (28-36 ev, 46,48,50,64-70 ev) and p. 632 (2-18 ev, 22-28 ev)

If simplified radicals have the same radicand, then we can add or subtract them by adding/subtracting their coefficients. We can multiply radicals even if their radicands are different. I showed Marcos how to FOIL two binomials with radicals in them. His assignment is p.625 (2-26 even, 38-44 even)

I outlined on the whiteboard the permutations of the motif of "light" in the novel starting with the protagonist's initially hiding himself in a dark tunnel through his re-discovery of electricity. We discussed the various meanings of "light" as insight, intellectual curiosity , self knowledge, and discovery. Marcos is very impressed with Ayn Rand ,and we had a prolonged animated discussion about the meaning and implications of her philosophy of pure self interest and her disdain for public altruism. Marcos offered arguments supporting Rand's theory and argued that her criticism of economic collectivism was perhaps more aptly described as a condemnation of the mind set of those who supported collective efforts or the forced altruism of programs such as the income tax-which Ayn Rand did in fact despise . We reviewed Marcos' study guide questions and worked on developing his answers to questions that seek an explanation of various quotes from the novel. For homework , I assigned chapters 9 and 10 and answering the study guide questions on these chapters. We will complete the novel next week and then commence review for the final exam.