Henry is sent home for disciplinary reasons.

Henry and I work work on completing his clay sculpture.

Today's lesson wasn't productive or positive in the slightest. Henry refused to participate in any discussion, activity, or general dialogue which I attempted. Our interacts have deteriorated to the point of Henry speaking over me with "blahs", "borings", and "I-don't-want-to's." Seemingly, there is nothing I can do at this point to engage him in anything other than play or senseless discussions of an incoherent and childish nature. The end of today's lesson was particularly difficult as Henry began to strike me repeatedly with a wooden toy-broom; kicking me with his dirty sneakers, stepping on my shoes, and getting dirt and other markings on my suit and expensive dress shoes which was very disrespectful since I had requested him to stop more than a handful of times. I have tried to rationalize with Henry regarding his interactions with others, his speech toward others, and his approach toward learning, yet he simply refuses to listen or allow me to get a word in edge-wise. I'm struggling to find any common ground with Henry at this particular moment in time, which is the reason for my concern. His actions of striking me with the broom and attempting to put his dirty shoes on me without respect for my requests for him to stop nor respect for my personal property came out of nowhere. Needless to say, I am at a loss for how to move forward in this particular circumstance, and I am fully open to suggestions and assistance on this matter.

The first half of this 2-hour session included the Ornament Decorating Holiday Activity and outdoor fun playing baseball with other Batt School Scholars. Henry created a nifty-looking ornament, which he made into an elf. He was able to successfully overcome obstacles when constructing the elf ornament; however, this required me to pose questions regarding the goals he had for its appearance. I used a sort of Socratic questioning and gave him visuals I was able to access from Google Images. Following the ornament decorating, Henry and I began playing catch with a baseball outside in the playground area. Another Batt School Scholar joined us and it quickly became a fun game of batting practice, which ended with Henry hitting a home run on his first solid hit of the baseball. As a transition to the second half of the lesson, Henry and I sat in the main study area while he asked me a variety of questions regarding the symbolism of the Menorah comparatively to Christmas. We also discussed Yoga and Wellness, and I was able to help Henry perform an assisted Headstand after some modeling of the pose and a brief explanation of the physics of its execution. During the last portion of the lesson, Henry attempted to resist my efforts to engage him in a discussion on Leadership, particularly the characteristics of a leader. I was able to use examples from the day's lesson, my own character as a model of a good leader, and a Time magazine cover with the recently deceased former President George H.W. Bush to guide the discuss despite his unwillingness to participate and efforts to distract the course of our discussion. Toward the final fifteen-minutes of our session, Henry became completely disconnected from any efforts I made to attempt any instruction, so I used that time to provide suggestions for him to more effectively interact on a much more mature, scholarly, and healthy level during the less playful, hands-on, activities-based portions of our lesson in which he thrives. I discussed the need for balance in our session, proper forms of communication, and the types of behaviors and speech that would be beneficial to his success as well as the forms that would not be constructive nor generally tolerated by myself or others. I gave him direct examples to illustrate how I as a leader needed to work with him to succeed in our efforts, how I as an effectively leader needed to overcome obstacles while maintaining balance, appropriate communication, and accountability for the wellness of the sessions. Despite the struggle at the end of the session, Henry and I had a successful overall interaction today, and I look forward to helping Henry continue to grow in these capacities discussed herein.

Henry is working on a project about holidays/celebrations around the world. Today we started research on places and their holidays. Henry is choosing which countries he wants to include in the project. Today he was able to find holidays celebrated in Djibouti, the Bahamas and Ireland.

Henry refuses to do his math activity because he says he hates math. He was very upset that his tea that he said he left in the kitchen was missing. Together we looked high and low but could not find it. Henry took 10-15 minutes to calm down to a point where he would even play a math game called rack-o. This certainly was not a good period for Henry.

Henry was much more willing to do math this hour. We spent 35 minutes completing an activity sheet on Integers. He did so well that I rewarded him with the remaining time in the Industrial Arts Laboratory where he created a fan using a dowel rod and paper. Good session...

Henry and I discussed the human body systems and then I asked him which one he would like to study in detail. He picked the brain which is an organ in the Nervous System. We looked at some illustrations of the brain and discussed the cerebrum, cerebellum, medulla and brain stem.

Today was Henry's first day back and although he began a bit shy and reserved, he quickly warmed back up. We spent the morning reacquainting; looking over his room, evaluating the garden and new changes, and making some raspberry tea.

Today was Henry's first day back with me. I had planned to make a storyboard with him and complete a typing club lesson, but he did not want to do either. Instead we completed two puzzles with Dash and that made him happy.