For today's class, Atticus worked on sketching the scenes for his narrative pottery. He chose to do the story of Easter. We worked on picking four major scenes and what would be in them. He used his sketch book to sketch out his scenes. We then went over the next two steps he would be learning at the pottery wheel.
After discussing various biographical facts about the author,Charles Dickens, Atticus worked on a vocabulary exercise based on words drawn from the first chapters of the story, " A Christmas Carol." As we used the dictionary, I explained how to read the phonetic notations in order to learn the correct pronunciation of words. During our second session, we began examining the story's plot as I highlighted elements of Dickens' distinct writing style. In order to provide Atticus practice in making journal entries, after we read the first pages, I again explained the purpose of the journal entry after which Atticus in his notebook entered two entries. We examined how the texts he chose evidenced character and Dickens' interest in social reform . HW- read 5 pages and make journal entries on the reading.
This morning, Atticus and I reviewed his homework and corrected the missed problems. Then, we identified the parts of expressions and their vocabulary. Atticus named the variables, terms, coefficients, constant numerical values, sums, differences, quotients, and products of expressions. He also wrote algebraic expressions for given situations and matched the correct expressions to their situations. For homework, Atticus was assigned 5 spiral review problems.
Today, we began by reviewing and correcting last night's homework.
Atticus missed and had to correct all 5 problems on interchanging mixed numbers and improper fractions, multiplying decimals, and subtracting fractions with unlike denominators. Then, we continued to work on our current lesson. Atticus completed the problem-solving questions on writing algebraic expressions before taking the unit quiz, scoring 80%. For homework, Atticus was assigned 5 problems on evaluating expressions using the order of operations and is expected to show all of his work.
Today, Atticus and I discussed what different cells can do. We discussed how form follows function, and this can be seen in how a cell's shape and structure is a result of its function. In his workbook, he observed illustrations of three different cells, and inferred their functions based on their shapes. He recorded his answers in his workbook. The three different cells he observed were red blood cells, xylem cells, and neurons. We then read a short passage about the unicellular organism, Vorticella, and learned how its structures and shape are determined by the structures' functions. Atticus then chose another unicellular organism to research, and began creating a presentation that details how the organism's form follows its function.
Today, Atticus and I observed the differences between plant and animal cells. We viewed a video of an Elodea plant, observed the chloroplasts being moved around the cell by cytoplasmic streaming, observed the cell wall and nucleus. We also viewed an image of a cheek cell, noting the nucleus and lack of cell wall/chloroplasts. In our workbook, we recorded how the plant and animal cells differed and were the same. He drew images of each cell and labeled the organelles.
Atticus gave me a detailed summary of his new Demon Slayer books. We reviewed what was happening when we last read ‘Out of My Mind’ and started reading the next chapter. He was very anxious to get to the Thanksgiving feast, so our session was slightly shortened.
