Every so often, throughout history, a character comes along who refuses to be ignored. In the tumultuous and chaotic period of the French Revolution, many such men have been deemed large enough characters to warrant articles, books, and even whole history courses. None, however, were as large as the man to become Emperor of the French Empire, Napoleon Bonaparte. In this lesson, we explored Napoleon's rise to greatness. Regardless of the surrounding circumstances of his election, by 1804 Napoleon had risen to the imperial throne at just 35 years old. Napoleon's military genius made him famous, and his keen sense of political timing helped pave his way to greatness. His ascent from military officer, to commander, to emperor seems improbable, and without the equally improbable circumstances of the French Revolution, such a stratospheric rise would likely not have been possible. Now, with a secure and ambitious emperor on the French throne, France was set to score some of the greatest victories in its history. Napoleon Bonaparte, general, the Emperor of France and nearly conqueror of all of Europe, lived a truly larger than life existence. Born on a small island, he was educated in the military and rose to greatness during the chaos of the French Revolution. His military victories won him fame in France and his astute political maneuvers helped him become first consul of France in 1799. His popularity was such that most Frenchman applauded him becoming Emperor in 1804. Almost a decade of military victories and French conquests followed, until Napoleon made the fateful decision to invade Russia in 1812. Napoleon's failure to equip his troops for the harsh Russian winter caused him to lose thousands of men and turned the tide against the French Empire. By 1814, France was defeated and Napoleon was exiled. A brief return to power less than a year later only led to his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, and his exile to an even more remote location, where he died in 1821. Jaydn scored 100% on the quiz following this lesson. Good job, Jadyn!

We spent today's class participating in a special webinar, the "Anniversary in Schools Webinar" brought to teachers and students from the 9/11 Memorial & Museum. We began by viewing a 35-minute program that tells the story of the 9/11 attacks through personal stories from first responders and survivors. It was incredibly moving. We were then able to take a virtual tour of the museum and memorial. We learned how many communities, families and NYC will observe the anniversary tomorrow on 9/11/21. Bells will toll at the exact times that these horrific events took place 20 years ago, starting with 8:46am and end at 10:28am. It's still hard to process that in between those hours, 2 planes crashed into the north and south towers of the World Trade Center, 1 plane crashed into the Pentagon and another plane, diverted by passengers from likely hitting another target in Washington, DC, crashed into a field in Pennsylvania. Also within this time frame, each of the World Trade Center Towers collapsed. In less than two hours, almost 3,000 people were killed and history was forever altered. We viewed the special light installation that illuminates the NYC
skyline on the night of every Sept. 11 since 2001. It projects the image of two towers reaching up into the heavens for almost 4 miles. Jaydn feels that it is very important to never forget 9/11 and that subsequent generations need to learn about the events of that day.

We began with various warm-up exercises concentrating on tongue and lip positions for the vowel sounds. I then started the preliminary teaching of sight-singing, which we shall build on throughout the syllabus. Jaydn then performed "She Plays Bass" by the band Beabadoobee.

We talked about the discovery of electrons and the nucleus. We talked about old atomic models, like the plum pudding model and the nuclear model. We then practiced identifying which element an atom is based off of its atomic number.

Jaydn read the next chapter of The Glass Castle. She then wrote on the theme of instability of a family and used text from the chapter to support her point of view in the essay,

Jaydn continued her study of the memoir The Glass Castle by Jeanette Walls. She analyzed the theme of familial relationships and described the relationships of the main characters. She discussed what she thought the author was trying to convey about the theme through the characters. She continued her SAT vocabulary study.

Taught and reviewed the following signs and categories:
ASL parameters
Family signs, the sign location for girl/female (mother, aunt, grandmother, cousin, and etc.) and boy/male (father, aunt, grandpa, cousin, etc.)
Pronouns
Animal signs
Numbers from 1-10

Today's lesson focused on continuing Jaydn's assignment for creative writing. Jaydn spent the class writing her creative passage based on a picture provided of a swing in a creepy setting. Jaydn wrote a detailed story about a character who wanted to play on the swing that she could see from her backyard but was not allowed to play on. She developed characters and a creative storyline.

Jaydn was scheduled for history class today from 2:30 - 3:30pm. I could not reach her. Elise reached out to her mom, but there was no response. I did email Jaydn her HW for tomorrow with the following message: "Hi Jaydn:

It's Bari. I hope you're doing well. We are scheduled for history class today from 2:30 - 3:30pm. Please let me know when you get this message? I sent your HW to your Gmail. It is a reading about the French Revolution. There are also 5 questions I sent to you about the reading. Please answer them after you read the lesson and complete the reading and questions for tomorrow's class. Also, I am here in your room until 3:30pm, so please feel free to let me know if you're available.
All the best, Bari"

The French Revolution began in 1789 with the storming of the Bastille prison and it continued through 1799. It went through several political phases, of which the Reign of Terror was the bloodiest and the most well-known. Without the Reign of Terror, the French Revolution and its outcomes would likely have been very different for the people of France and for Europe in general. By 1789, France's King Louis XVI faced an economic crisis caused by a century of French foreign wars, empire building and the crown's fiscal irresponsibility forced his hand. The anger of the Parisian people and the growing popularity of Enlightenment-style civil liberties and democracy fueled the creation of the National Assembly. All of these forces and the Assembly's defiance of the king's orders served to create a rather chaotic France. Matters for both the king and the French people worsened when the Legislative Assembly fell to a popular riot in August 1792, with France at war with two central European powers, its own king imprisoned and the economic situation no closer to being ameliorated. By the fall of 1792, the direction in which France would proceed was anyone's guess. The Reign of Terror was a period of around a year during the French Revolution during which many people were executed for supposedly opposing the Revolution. Exactly when and how long was the Reign of Terror? Historians disagree on the exact answer to these questions because of ambiguity about the exact date when the period began. Different sources suggest different dates in 1793. It ended definitively on July 28th, 1794, with the execution of its most important orchestrator: Maximilien Robespierre.