March 1st 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down with Mr Tom and worked on my piano lesson for today. We started off by working in the Technique book, where we went on to a new song, entitled Broken Majors and Minors. Then we worked in the lesson book, where we have now got to the point where I can play Olympic Procession hands together, although Mr Tom says that it is a good idea to practice hands separately A LOT.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

Mr Tom

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

Art and Publishing

For my art today, I worked on my Soil poster for the Warren County Soil Association. I started by drawing a sketch, then drawing out my finished design on Bristol Board. After that, I scanned my picture into the computer, inked it and added color. My mom and dad said that I did a really good job, and I sent it off to my art teacher, who has access to a big printer, to print it.

Resources

Mr Pete

My Computer

---

March 2nd 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I wrote about an interview with a cat, using some adverbs when I could.

Resources

Hot Fudge Monday Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I learned about the average wages for women and men in different jobs, and how the wages women earn are mostly much smaller. After that, I studied jobs where women are starting to earn about the same as men, including astronauts. I read about the Shuttle Columbia (I don't think it was the one that exploded upon reentry) and its female captain.

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was very cold and snowing like crazy.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar2.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we listened to the first activity in Lesson Five of our Voila! course. After that, we spoke through it ourselves and then translated it as best we could. Lastly, we read through the word list from lesson four.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

Ma France Website

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about frogs and toads. There are many different types of frogs and toads, and many are very strange and have interesting ways of surviving and reproducing. Glass Frogs are slightly transparent, allowing them to hide of the bottoms of leaves, unnoticed. There is one recently found burrowing frog that looks like an unhappy blob of jelly with a big nose. I really enjoyed reading about these fascinating and sometimes strange creatures.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Math

Time: 75 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by reading about the history of probability and how it works in my How Math Works book. Then I moved on to some practical exercises to help me understand probability and statistics. First, we looked at the odds of a problem: you have a ball in a bag that is either black or white and you put a black ball in. Then you draw out a black ball. What are the chances of the other ball being black? The answer is 2/3, because there are two chances where the ball would be black, and one where it would be white. We made a table for the probability of getting all cards right out of five cards. It was a 1 in 120 chance, which meant we would have to keep picking cards 120 times, or get a computer to do it! After that, we looked at the chances of your birthday being on the seventh or the twelfth day of a month. We finished up by looking a some different exercises with probability in my Go Figure! book.

Resources

My Math Book

Go Figure!

How Math Works

My Dad

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

Dad and I pulled logs from our neighbor's yard to our yard in a sled, several times. It was hot work! After that, we cleared the driveway.

---

Science

Time: 120 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird project, I am studying the Galapagos Islands. So tonight we watched parts one and two of Galapagos, a DVD about those islands and the rich and diverse life that lives there. In the first section, we took a brief overview of the different islands and the animals that live there. There are some very cool creatures there, like Marine Iguanas, which live on the land but dive into the sea to get their food: algae that lives on the bottom. There are also the Galapagos Giant Tortoises, which the islands are named after. They are huge, and weigh enough to rival a small truck! After that, we watched the second section, which was about how people thought of the Galapagos islands and how they influenced the theory of evolution. Darwin was actually not inspired so much by the finches with different beaks, but by mockingbirds, which he saw were slightly different on each island. He knew that the islands were constantly changing, and this discovery led him to wonder if life could be constantly changing, too. Speaking of the finches, one of them has adapted to peck holes in trees to pull out the fat, juicy grubs. But it doesn't have a beak like a woodpecker, and so it uses a stick to pull them out. It uses a tool! I really enjoyed the first two parts of the Galapagos DVD, and I am looking forward to watching the next!

Resources

My Computer

Galapagos DVD

---

March 3rd 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I wrote about a little lost shoe who was rescued from the Billinton trash heap by a combat boot, a flip-flop and a sandal. I sprinkled it with as many adverbs as I could.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/shoegrammar.pdf

Resources

Hot Fudge Monday Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I studied the article about the space shuttle Columbia, which was the first shuttle to be piloted by a woman. It was very interesting, and when I was done, I answered some of the article questions.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/shuttle.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was very cold and windy.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar3.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we read about banks in France, and how some post offices also offer bank-like services. After that, we worked as translators between an English bank and a French tourist who wanted to withdraw money.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about salamanders and newts. They really are fascinating creatures. In larval form, furry-looking tentacles grow out of their heads, which are actually their gills. Some salamanders can breed while still in the larval stage. Others can walk in fire, but not very long, contrary to legend. A mucus flows out of their skin when under intense heat, and it hardens and forms a protective layer. Pretty neat! I'd like one of those. We will finish that chapter tomorrow.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 21 of the algebra 1 course, which was about doing more explorations with rational functions. We started by looking a bit more at the reciprocal function: y= 1/x, and then wrote about the equation y= a/x, where a is any integer. Then we wrote some of the things that are specific to that equation, and what it looks like when you graph it with different values of a. After that, we worked on problem number one, which was about the inverse proportion between speed and time when travel ling. If you speed up, the time it takes to get to your destination is less, and vice versa. Lastly, we wrote an equation to find the smallest surface area of a box that could hold 250 ml of liquid. It turned out to be a cube. After that, there was a bit more discussion, and I finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Economics

Reflection

Mom went through today's section of our Economics course, Whatever Happened to Penny Candy?, with me. I started by reading Chapter One, which was a letter about inflation and recession. Then I answered all the questions about it, and consulted the economic timetable in the back for help with dates. It was actually very easy!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/Economics3.pdf

Resources

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? Economics Course

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

Art and Publishing

For my art this evening, I worked with my art teacher, Mr Pete, on some pieces of art my Terror of Porridge book. I started by finishing the inking on one of my pictures, and then translated a rough sketch of one of the others into a finished sketch, and began inking it. I thought that I did a really good job on my art tonight.

Resources

Mr Pete

Paper and Pens

Light Box

---

March 4th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I wrote about an overnight stay in a cold airport where the planes are all being repaired. I had a lot of fun writing it, and I used lots of adverbs.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/airport.pdf

Resources

Hot Fudge Monday Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I studied the article about the space shuttle Columbia, which was the first shuttle to be piloted by a woman. Today I answered some more of the article questions.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/shuttle.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was not too cold, in fact, I felt a bit overheated at one point.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar4.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the lesson in the book for video 21, which was all about rational functions. We started by looking at some things I had learned in the video about the relationship between rational functions and their graphs, and then moved on to a summary and some additional explorations with the two rational functions I learned about in the video. I learned how to simplify the equation y= 2x^2+4x times 250/x^2, and how to make it into a purely rational function. It was tricky, but with the help of some notes I had written while watching the video, we figured it out. Lastly, we looked a rational equation that gave you very strange graph, and figured out why, through the use of our computer graphing calculator.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we read an advert for a french town called Berville, translated it as best we could, and answered some questions about it. We also read through some vocabulary.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we finished reading the chapter on salamanders and newts. There are many different types of salamanders, from ones that never grow up, but stay in larval form all their life ("Peter Pan" salamanders) to ones in China that can grow up to be 1.8 meters! That's big! There are some with very tiny legs that slither across the ground, and ones that hang from trees by their tails. Next time we will read about the only family of amphibians with no legs.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Science

Time: 90 min

Physical Science

Reflection

For our science today, we worked on part four of our Weather Project, which was about Weather Forecasting. We started by discussing the definition of weather forecasting, which is the "application of science and technology to predict the state of the atmosphere at a later time." What this basically means is to gather data, and use it to predict what the weather will be later. What sort of data can you gather, and how? There are several different methods of getting your data, which are weather balloons which measure temperature, air pressure and their position, which can then be put onto a very weird-looking map; radar (Doppler radar is especially good for picking up moving air currents) and satellites. Then we did a radar simulation to show how it works. After that, we covered air pressure and humidity, and did an experiment where we made a cloud in a bottle by using hot water and smoke (the smoke was there for the water vapor to cling on to). Lastly, we did a recap of what we learned in the course, and finished up.

Resources

My Dad

My Computer

Bottle

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

Dad and I finished pulling logs from our neighbor's yard to our yard in a sled. It was hot work! After that, we put the chickens away.

---

Science

Time: 60 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

Tonight we watched the third and last part of the DVD on the Galapagos Islands. It was about how the forces of nature that are constantly at work on the islands shapes the evolution of all the creatures there. Almost all of the life there is dependent upon the seas for food, and when the sea doesn't deliver, as it doesn't when El Nino comes past, it can be catastrophic! Many sea lion pups die in those years, and a lot of marine iguanas wither to husks and then keel over. But when the sea does deliver, life thrives. And some very strange life comes up from the deeps. There are jellyfish that allow fish to go inside them and clean them. There are hundreds of glowing sea creatures that come up to feed. On land, there is an amazing diversity of life. But humans are spoiling it, by developing the pristine land to put in suburbs, and by introducing cats, dogs and goats, which have no natural predators. The goat problem has got so big that they now have to hunted down and shot from helicopters, because they eat all the grass and native plants. Hopefully, in the future, people will learn to respect the Galapagos islands and their creatures.

Resources

My Computer

Galapagos DVD

---

March 5th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I wrote about the weirdest sport I could find, which was the World Beard-Growing Championships. I think it's really funny that there is actually a contest for that! Anyway, I wrote a short report about a beard-growing contest.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/beardcontest.pdf

Resources

Hot Fudge Monday Grammar Book

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was warm and the snow was melting.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar5.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we read through some sentences that we had submitted to our French teacher, Miss Marie, and that she had corrected. I think we both did a good job!

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we started reading the section of our Amphibian Class book on Ceacilians, the only amphibians with no feet. They are like enormous worms, and they did tunnels through the soil. Most do not have eyes, as they don't them in their dark underground tunnels. I really enjoyed reading about them, and tomorrow we will finish the chapter.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

I vacuumed our house, ceiling to floor, and took care to pull out and go behind furniture and doors. I also dusted where I needed to.

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the last part of lesson 21, which was on explorations with rational functions. We started by looking at the last of the supplementary exercises, which was tricky. In it, we had to create a rational equation to solve the puzzle: 2 times a number plus 2 times its reciprocal is five. We used our brains to find a non-rational equation and turn it into a rational one, and then used the graphing calculator on the computer to solve it. After that, we worked on a investigative problem where we had to find the minimum surface area of a cylinder with a volume of 250 ml. The graphing calculator was pretty useless on this one, and we ended up having to use the computer's scientific calculator to solve the really tricky bits. When we had done that, we finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

English

Time: 120 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my first rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we began by getting to know each other, and then settled down to read through the script. I am a bully in Bastion's class, a gnome named Eribo, and part of the Purple Buffalo Puppet! Anyway, the play seems to be fun and quirky, just as the book was, and I think it's going to be great! After we finished the read-through, we were measured for our costumes and got to look through sketches of the puppets that we will be using. The Nothing is especially creepy! I had a really good time.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 6th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I found all the adverbs in the descriptions of some Swiss Army Tools and wrote them down under How, When and Where categories.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/grammar2.pdf

Resources

Hot Fudge Monday Grammar Book

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was warm.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar6.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we read through the transcript for the Ma France episode on directions that we had watched last time, and watched it again, translating on the way.

Resources

Ma France website

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we finished reading the section of our Amphibian Class book on Ceacilians, strange and little-known creatures that look like enormous earthworms.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For our history study today, we listened to our Story of the World Cd on the Modern Age. Today's stories were on a five year war in South America started over the driest place on earth, and the digging on the Suez canal in Egypt.

Resources

Story of the World

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 22 of my Algebra 1 course, which was on exponential functions. In exponential functions, there is a variable in the exponent, so it is something to the power of x. The first activity was a famous chessboard problem where you place one grain of wheat on the first square, two on the second, four on the third, eight on the fourth and so on. The equation for this is 2^x-1! When you get to the end of the chessboard, at square 64, the number of grains is so large that it is over a quintillion. After that, we did another exponential exercise where you folded paper. If you can find a piece of paper that you could fold 50 times, all the folds on top of each other would stretch a third of the way to the sun. Of course, no matter the size of the paper, you can't do that, but it's still pretty cool. I really enjoyed this lesson.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1 DVD

---

March 7th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Broken Majors and Minors in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We started our dancing and singing class by doing some exercises. Then we learned some new dances, and worked on new ways of crossing the room. One was a step which I can't remember the name of, which went cross, jump step. I was actually pretty good a most of the steps, and very good at a few of them. After that, we worked on the movement and words of the "We're In the Money!" song, and added a new section! Lastly, we sang almost all of our songs, and learned a new one.

Resources

Miss Lia

Other students

---

English

Time: 60 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my acting class with Mr Danny, we began by discussing what we were going to do in the lesson, as we only had three class members. We decided to do some acting games instead of working on our scripts (I was outvoted!) So we worked on The Fairy Tale Minute, a game where you had to condense a fairy tale into one minute, then 30 seconds, then 15 seconds, then 10, and finally 5. After that, we played another game, which was a fairy tale interview (our best was Jack in the Beanstalk), and finished up.

Resources

Mr Danny

Other students

---

March 8th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down with Mr Tom and worked on my piano lesson for today. We started off by working in the Technique book, where we went on to a new song, entitled Note Down, Pedal Up. After that, we worked on Olympic Procession, and though I am doing one more week on that, I also moved on to an exercise with thirds.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

Mr Tom

---

Elective

Time: 120 min

Art and Publishing

For my art today, I worked on my contest for Cricket magazine. It was to create a poster for a fake movie you would like to see. I decided to create a poster for a movie called Night of the UFOs. I started in Truespace, by creating a small, rocky island and some water around it. Then I added a bottom to the reef, to create realistic reflections in the water. After that, I modeled the UFO, textured it and added lights to the base. I added the logo in the Gimp.

Resources

My Computer

Truespace

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Art and Publishing

Today I painted my Bluebird Box with my name in white paint, to distinguish it from the ones that other people are building for their bird projects. I think it looks very good.

Resources

Paints

Brushes

---

Science

Time: 90 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

I read a book about Darwin's voyage on the Beagle for about an hour and a half. It was very engrossing, and I learned a lot from it.

Resources

The Voyage of the Beagle book

---

March 9th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I started a new book of grammar, called Language is Served. For the first activity, I had to unscramble some scrambled words, which actually quite hard. I got eight done.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/foodlist.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was cold, wet and very misty.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar9.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we wrote short French adverts for two towns. I chose a fictional town called Mouton-Ville (sheep town) and wrote the great things you can see there. Then I emailed it over to mom.

Resources

Voila! Book

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about how amphibians are in danger, and also how some are a danger to other creatures. A lot of amphibians are getting squished on the road these days, and pesticides and habitat loss kill others. We also learned about a species of frog imported to Australia that has been killing off the native animals and is super-toxic.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the lesson in the book for Video 22 with my dad. We started by looking at what we learned in the lesson before. Then we graphed the equation 2^x, and found three things that were significant about its graph (we also found that 1/2x^2 is its direct opposite). After that, we looked at the equations from the lesson and explored them a little bit more with the aid of the graphing calculator. We found that if you were able to fold a piece of paper 30 times, the stack would tower into the sky and reach into space. Lastly, we did a short exercise where we identified whether several equations were exponential, did a short exercise with 2, 3, and 5 to the power of x, and finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

Social Studies

Time: 90

A Study of Physical and Political Geography

Reflection

When everyone had arrived for our Geography lesson, we started learning about erosion, and began by making a terraced mountain to prove that terraces do help to prevent erosion. We found that terraces do, indeed, halt erosion, but they need to be deep and protected. To prove this, we built a fifteen-inch high mountain in the sandbox with terraces on one side, which we then poured water on. The water carved a deep gouge in one side, but broke off the terraced side. After that, we read about soil erosion, went over some different types of maps, and finished up.

Erosion Mountain:

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/homeschool/HeiferStudy2009/

Resources

Lessons from a Village Called Earth Geography Course

My mom

---

March 10th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own. I also taught myself to play the theme song from Jurassic Park.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served book to finish up half of all the scrambled words. Only 25 more to go!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/foodlist.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I learned about a case that contained one the earliest ever manufactured pieces of plutonium, and answered one of the article questions about it.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/plutonium.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was chilly.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar10.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we read through the short French adverts that we wrote yesterday, and then worked on a new video on the Ma France website, which was very easy and was about towns.

Resources

Ma France Website

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned more about how amphibians are in danger, and read about the problems that are happening with pollution and illegal harvesting for the pet trade. Amphibians really are in danger, but if we change our selfish, polluting ways, they might survive and recover.

Resources

The Amphibian Class Book

---

Science

Time: 40

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my worms project, I filled in some pages about what worms do in warm and cold weather and where you can find worms in my Worms Eat My Garbage Book. Then I found a worm in the worm bin and used him to test whether worms can detect light. Then I used him to test how quickly worms can move on different surfaces.

Resources

Worms Eat My Garbage Course

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 15 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my Bird Study, I read some pages on bird field markings for 15 minutes. I learned a lot about markings and about different postures (relaxed, alert... etc).

Resources

Sibley's Bird Guide

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the rest of the lesson in the book for Video 22. Today we looked at some exponential functions I graphed last time and discussed some things that we spotted about them. Then we looked at the investigative problem, and figured out, using the computer calculator, how many cents you would have if you had (2^31)-1 cents. Then we calculated that for dollars. Lastly, we looked at some other parts of the investigative problem, and answered the last of the questions.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

English

Time: 120 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at the second rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we started blocking immediately. It is quite a different experience than what I had in the Secret Garden, as there is a lot more movement than there was previously (for me, anyway. I just got pushed around in a wheelchair!) I have a few more parts now that one of the actors dropped out because of work, and that makes me happy (even though I'm sad that he dropped out). We got up to the point where Artax dies in the Swamps of Sadness (a very moving scene), and we will try to finish on Thursday.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 11th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own. I also taught myself to play the theme song from Jurassic Park.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served book to finish up a few more scrambled words. Almost halfway there!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/foodlist.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I learned some more about one of the earliest ever manufactured pieces of plutonium, and answered the rest of the article questions.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/plutonium.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we watched the last video in the travel section on the Ma France website, and then began doing the activities. They are getting very hard!

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

Ma France Website

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about what features are specific to birds (feathers), what all birds have in common and how birds are classified.

Resources

Bird Book

---

Math

Time: 25 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 23 of my algebra 1 course, which was on the geometry of exponential function graphs. Exponential functions, if you remember, are algebraic functions with the variable (x) in the exponent. First, we had a look at what makes an exponential function an exponential function. An exponential function rises quickly and steeply, much more so than any other type of function I have thus far encountered. After that, we examined a few exponent laws, and looked at some very special cases (in a^n, if n=0, then the output is one; if it is 1, then the output is a). I would have gone on, but we had to leave to go to Merrill Creek, and so I finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Science

Time: 120

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study this afternoon, we went to Merrill Creek for a presentation on Purple Finches. Purple Martins have uniquely evolved to rely on humans, who they see as protecting them. This relationship probably started when the Native American Indians started hanging up hollow gourds, which the Purple Martins would nest in. The Indians kept up the practice and passed it on to the first settlers, who began to build elaborate bird houses for the martins. When the practice died out, the birds also began to die. Nowadays, thankfully, there is an organization set up to protect this interesting, very social species. I really enjoyed learning about them. Here are some of the most interesting things about them I learned. One, they always return to the same box, year after year, unless they have a bad experience. Two, they are so relaxed around humans that they will let you handle their babies! Three, they migrate all the way down to Brazil in the winter, and back up again in the summer. When the presentation was done, we went on a walk down to the reservoir. We saw many wading birds!

-Buffleheads

-Snow Geese

-Canada Geese

-Pine Siskins

-House Sparrows

-Red-bellied Woodpecker

-Tufted Titmice

-House Finches

-Downy Woodpecker

Resources

Miss Liz

Miss Jessica

Merrill Creek Naturalist, Miss Jane

Mr Tim, presenter

Other Students

---

English

Time: 180 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I read The Lord of the Rings and A Giant Problem for three hours.

Resources

My Computer

---

March 12th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own. I also taught myself to play the theme song from Jurassic Park.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served book to finish up fourteen more scrambled words. Only 13 more to go!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/foodlist.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I read through my Upfront magazine for about 20 minutes. I learned about the Great Depression and how the lessons learned then can be applied to today, and about how different colors can influence your learning.

Resources

Upfront Magazine

---

Math

Time: 25 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching the rest of video 23 of my algebra 1 course, which was on the geometry of exponential function graphs. I learned a lot about exponential functions today, and I feel a lot more comfortable with it now. The first thing that we did was compare the graphs and tables of an exponential function and a quadratic function. We found that an exponential function rises much more steeply than a quadratic one. We also compared several exponential functions, and found that the base (the number being risen to the power of x) controls how steep the graph is. I also learned if the base is 1, the graph is a straight line (because 1 to the power of anything is 1), and that the graph slopes downward if the base is a fraction. When we had fully examined exponential functions, we finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

English

Time: 240 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

We went to a production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Shakespeare Theater of NJ. It was very good, and when we were done, the cast had a question and answer session.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/MidsummerNightsDream.pdf

Resources

My Computer

---

English

Time: 120 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my third rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we started where we left off, and continued to the very end until we had a bare bones idea of the blocking. The play is coming along really well! I am a wind giant (one of the four) and part of The Nothing in the second half! I am not so prevalent in the second half, but I will probably get some puppet roles. When we were done, we discussed the rehearsal schedule.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 13th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own. I also taught myself to play the theme song from Jurassic Park.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served book to finish up a few more scrambled words. Then we looked up the rest so that I can go onto a new lesson on Monday.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/foodlist.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 15 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I read through my Upfront magazine for about 15 minutes, and learned about saving the rain forest and the nuclear accident at Chernobyl.

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was cold today.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar13.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

English

Time: 120 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I read The Lord of the Rings and my upfront magazine for two hours.

Resources

My Computer

---

English

Time: 30 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I listened to a Living Books for the Ears production of a book by Leo Tolstoy (not War and Peace!). I was very moving, and was about a man who was framed for a murder and sent to prison in Siberia. If you want to learn any more, you'll have to go to the website and listen to it!

Resources

My Computer

Living Books for the Ears

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For our history study today, we listened to our Story of the World Cd on the Modern Age. Today's stories were on the outlaws of Austalia and the scramble for Africa (which didn't take into account the opinions of the native Africans, of course!)

Resources

Story of the World

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on the grammar and vocabulary for our latest Ma France lesson, and then did some activities to test our french language skills.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

Ma France Website

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about spotting and identifying different species of birds, and some of the ones that you are most likely to see (Pigeons and House Sparrows, sadly).

Resources

Bird Book

---

March 14th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Note Down, Pedal Up in my Technic book, Olympic Procession in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We started our dancing and singing class by doing some exercises. Then we very briefly worked on some dancing, including a new dance where we moved around in a circle, and crossing the room in different ways. After that, we began working on the movements for our We're in the Money song. We did very well, but as we danced, the tape player that was playing the tune to We're in the Money kept skipping. Eventually we just did without. Lastly, we sang our Falling in Love with Love song and the girls got a new song.

Resources

Miss Lia

Other students

---

English

Time: 60 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my acting class with Mr Danny, we began by discussing how we were going to write the scripts for our Jabberwocky plays, and began! Lizzie and I worked together to create a modern rendition (a very silly one) of the Jabberwocky poem, where a kid finds a monster in the Pine Barrens that chases him home, burbling as it comes. Next day, he grabs a sword that his parents keep in a display case and runs off to slay the Jabberwock. Of course, when he comes home, his parents don't believe him! When we were done writing a summary of the entire play, we wrote down one of the scenes, and played the improvisation game Taxi.

Resources

Mr Danny

Other students

---

March 15th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down with Mr Tom and worked on my piano lesson for today. We started off by working in the Technique book, where we went on to a new song, entitled Up on One, Pedal on And. After that, we went through my Olympic Procession piece, practicing hands separately and together. One more week on that, Mr Tom says!

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

Mr Tom

---

English

Time: 120 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

We watched a play called Inherit the Wind, which was about the Scopes Trial, for about two hours. I was a very powerful piece.

Resources

My Computer

---

March 16th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I started a new book of grammar, called Red Hot Root Words. My first lesson was about the prefixes sub- and trans-. I read through the vocabulary notes, and then matched some of the words using these prefixes to some sentences. Lastly, I identified the meanings of some words using these new prefixes.

Resources

Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the lesson in the book for video 23 of my algebra 1 course, which was on the geometry of exponential function graphs. I started off by simplifying some equations with powers into a single number or variable with a power of something. Dad said that if he had a Tesla coil, I would be getting a lot of electric shocks at this point, but I managed to plow through nonetheless. Then we moved on to a review of some of the things I had learned by watching the video. That part was easy. After that, we worked on the supplementary exercises, which were about a bacteria that split in two every hour (equation: f(x)= 2^x, where x is the hour and f(x) gives you the number of bacteria) and a piece of paper that was being folded in half again and again (this was the reciprocal of the first). Lastly, we worked on the investigative problem, which was about an equation that could give you the approximate world population for each year.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was warm and some of the trees were budding.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar16.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about identifying different bird species and the anatomy of a bird. Some birds, like swans, have very flexible necks!

Resources

Bird Book

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I studied an article about the effects of television on presidential elections. It was written about the election where Kennedy beat Nixon.

Resources

Up Front website

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on an exercise in our Voila! book where we read through a French advert for a holiday camp, and answered some questions posed about it.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

A Local Study of Mountain Lake

Reflection

For our Study of Mountain Lake today, we began by reading through the reports on the Native American Indians that we worked on last time. After that, we began to learn about wetlands and some of the creatures that live there, the amphibians. We studied the difference between frogs and toads (frogs live mostly in water, toads mostly on dry land), but didn't go into the other amphibians today. We have been doing an amphibian study lately, so I was up to date on a lot of the stuff. Dad gave a presentation on the work he is doing to protect amphibians by taking part in a project to help them cross roads safely. After that, we worked on a short puppet show about metamorphosis, and finished up.

Resources

My Mom

My Dad

Other students

Amphibian Class book

Take a Wetland Walk book

---

English

Time: 120 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When I arrived at the rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we started by going through scene one. We went through the choreographing for this scene in detail. After that, we just kept going, and plowed all the way through to scene 6. I was actually off book today, mostly because I only had about 3 lines! I was a bully and an assistant to the High Chancellor! Everybody had a good time and did well.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 17th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served grammar book. I wrote a story about a food disaster that happened at our house: when mom put salt in the Hot Cross Buns instead of sugar!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/grammar3.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by learning about averages. We studied the mean, the median and the mode, which are the three different types of averages. We also learned how the average height of humans has increased, to the point where the average 11 year old boy today is just below the same height as the average German soldier in the 13th century. We also plugged some data into the computer, and used it to find the mean average. Lastly, we learned about statistics, made some graphs and finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

How Math Works book

My Dad

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was warm.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar17.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on an exercise in our Voila! book where we listened to a conversation between a tourist and a tourist office worker, and answered some questions about it.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 120

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my evolution study today, we studied why evolution is controversial. We started by going on the evolution website and looking at a summary of how people have accepted or rejected evolution and the start of the young-earth creationist movement. We also looked at what we're up against, by listening to a presentation made by one of creationism's strongest supporters. (Rant coming) While I respect that everyone has a right to hold whatever viewpoints they choose, unless they are hurting other people, I do not respect the creationist viewpoint. I also do not respect someone who tells children that if you hear a scientist talking about something that happened millions of years ago, put your hand up and say "Were you there?". He is teaching young people to be close-minded and not to look at things with an open mind. (Rant over) Anyway, we also watched a video called "What about God?", which included Christian students trying to reconcile the things they have been taught by their parents with what they were being taught in school, and professors explaining the challenges they went through to reconcile the two. It was very moving, and in the end I realized that Darwin did have a religion, it just wasn't one put down in a book. It was an awe at the wonder and majesty of living things, and the belief that at the beginning, there was a creator who breathed life into it all. With that, we finished up.

Resources

PBS Evolution Course

PBS Evolution Website

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about birds in the wetlands, and bird behaviors. It was interesting to review some of the different things birds will do in certain situations.

Resources

Bird Book

---

English

Time: 90 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

We started this rehearsal of the Never Ending Story by working a bit more on one of the scenes we did last night, where Cairon sets Atreyu out on the Great Quest. After that, we worked on my scene, where I play Erebo the gnome, who is flying about the stage in a hot air balloon. After that, I watched a few more scenes, but I wasn't in any of them, so I asked the director if I could leave.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 18th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Red Hot Root Words grammar book. For my lesson today, I worked on the prefixes hyper- and super-, by matching them to their meanings and using them in some sentences.

Resources

Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 24 of my algebra 1 course, which was on explorations with exponential functions and equations. We started by trying to find an exponential equation that could model radioactive decay. As we obviously could not bring measurable amounts of radioactive metals into the classroom, we used radioactive dice (dice with two sides that had blue dots on them; if we saw the blue dot, we removed that die). When we had got that data, we plugged it into the graphing calculator and used that to find the approximate equation. Then we used that to answer some questions. After that, we very quickly did the same thing with another set of data, this time to find the equation for the top times of men and women doing the 800-meter run for eight years. After that, we finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was blowing hard.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar18.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on an activity in the Voila! book which involved asking questions about what activities are available in a small french town. After that, we went through another activity about landmarks in our town.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about what birds live on the beach, and what birds eat at the beach.

Resources

Bird Book

---

Science

Time: 90 min

Physical Science

Reflection

For our science today, we worked on part one of our physics quest module on Nikola Tesla. Today we started by watching a short presentation on the history of electricity. It seems the Greeks knew about electricity's effects, even though they didn't know what caused them. Benjamin Franklin was the first to realize that electricity was present in storms, in his famous experiment with a kite. Contrary to popular belief, when it said he got his son to hold the line of the kite, it didn't mean a child. His son was a 30-year old man by that point. Scientists also found that electricity could give dead bodies the semblance of life: limbs would twitch when a voltage was applied to them. Creepy! We also made our own Leyden Jars, which could be used to store and discharge electricity. We read through two pages of a comic book about the adventures of Tesla. He originally went to work for Edison, who he fell out with when Edison refused to give him the bonus he had said he would for his work. Edison might not have been such a nice guy! Lastly, we did an experiment with light and how it passes through certain substances.

Resources

My Dad

My Computer

Leyden Jar

Water Crystals

Other Students

---

March 19th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served grammar book. I wrote down as many one-, two-, three- and four-syllable foods I could think of.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/grammar4.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on the lesson in the book for video 24, which was on more explorations with exponential functions. We started by quickly going over the radioactive decay function that we covered in the video, and I cleared up a few problem points I was having there. After that, we went on to examine the other function we covered in the video, which modeled the scores of women and men in the 800 meter run for eight decades and then predicted that women would overtake men soon. Looking at the data, though, that doesn't seem to be the case. Oh well, it was only a model. Next, we looked at the supplementary exercises. They were some random exponential equations that were designed to test my knowledge. Lastly, I worked on an exponential function that modeled the population growth of a fictional city.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

English

Time: 60 min

Creative Writing

Reflection

I wrote a review of Inherit the Wind, the play based on the Scopes Trial we went to see on Sunday.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/InherittheWind.pdf

Resources

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

I read a book about Darwin's voyage on the Beagle for about half an hour. I learned about Darwin's experiences in South America.

Resources

The Voyage of the Beagle book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about different types of terns and birds that live and scavenge at the dump.

Resources

Bird Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar19.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

I vacuumed our house, ceiling to floor, and took care to pull out and go behind furniture and doors.

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

Art and Publishing

For my art today, I worked on my competition entry for Muse Magazine's newest contest. This month's contest asked me to draw a place that I remember, and I picked my old art studio, Art Spark. I started by drawing it out by hand, then scanned it and finished the inking and the coloring in the Gimp.

Resources

Pencils

My Computer

---

English

Time: 60 min

Creative Writing

Reflection

I wrote a an adventure for Dungeons and Dragons, in which the players must bring a message of help to a powerful sage in order to save their town from the undead. I used the Insider tools on the Dungeons and Dragons website to create some cool encounters and then allowed my imagination to do the rest!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/DarknessOverDale.pdf

Resources

My Computer

---

March 20th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Red Hot Root Words grammar book. For my lesson today, I worked on the prefixes fore-, pre- and post. I used them in a few sentences and used them to create new words and match them to their meanings.

Resources

Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 25 of my algebra 1 course, which was on solving systems of linear equations. We started by discussing what a system of equations, specifically linear functions, is. Up until now, I have been dealing with functions, which are to be viewed and graphed not solved. A system is a set of two or more functions. To solve one, you must find the point where they intersect. However, it's never that simple. With linear systems of two functions, there are three possible outcomes: 1, there is a point where the two intersect; 2, they are parallel and never intersect and 3, they are the same line and have an infinite number of intersections. We used two methods to solve this problem, with symbol manipulation and by using a graph. In all of the activities, I paused the video and tried to solve the systems myself. I succeeded every time I tried! Of course, these are linear functions! Next time, I will find out about how to use matrices to solve linear systems.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was cold and snowing lightly.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar20.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

English

Time: 30 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I listened to a Living Books for the Ears historical episode on the Court of Death and the search for a cure for the Typhus fever.

Resources

My Computer

Living Books for the Ears

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on two activities involving holiday houses in our Voila! book. The first was to decode a french letter from a holiday home rental service and answer some questions about it, and the other was to identify different parts of a house.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For our history study today, we listened to our Story of the World Cd on the Modern Age. Today's stories were on the potato famine in Ireland and the battle between the Boers and the British in Africa.

Resources

Story of the World

---

March 21st 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And in my Technic book, Olympic Procession and an exercise with thirds in the Lesson Book, and made up some songs of my own.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We started our dancing and singing class by doing some exercises, very briefly. We also crossed the room in several different ways that we had learned before, and with a new way, which was quite tricky, but I eventually managed to figure out. It involved crossing the right leg under the left, then turning all the way around so your left leg was behind, after which you would step out your left leg to do it again. Miss Lia said to practice this a lot, as we are going to using it in our group dance. Next, we went through our "We're In the Money!" song and adding some new movements. Lastly, we sang our solo songs, and picked one to sing for our parents.

Resources

Miss Lia

Other students

---

English

Time: 60 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my acting class with Mr Danny, we began by working on the scripts for our Jabberwocky plays. Our was about a boy who has just moved into a house in the Pine Barrens, and finds a monster (the Jabberwocky) when he goes exploring in the woods. The parents, of course, are completely oblivious, and the boy must grab the family sword and set out into the woods to slay the monster. When we were done with this, we played an acting game, where we pretended to be different people invited to a party. The person playing the host had to figure out who we were.

Resources

Mr Danny

Other students

---

March 22nd 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down with Mr Tom and worked on my piano lesson for today. We started off by working in the Technique book, where we went on to a new song, entitled Finger Substitution. I also finished my song in the lesson book, Olympic Procession. Lastly, we went on to another song, entitled Aloha Oe.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

Mr Tom

---

Science

Time: 120 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

I read a book about Darwin's voyage on the Beagle for about two hours. I learned about his journey over the Andes and his stay at the Galapagos Islands.

Resources

The Voyage of the Beagle book

---

March 23rd 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served Book to write an advert for the food at Hungry Henry's Food Shack, renaming the bland-sounding foods and writing better descriptions for them.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/HungryHenry.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on lesson 25 of my Algebra 1 course. Today's lesson was on solving systems of linear functions. Sounds easy, right? That's what I though after watching the video last time, which used some simple problems to illustrate the main methods to solve linear systems. But today, after I worked through the questions about things I learned in the video, which were easy, I learned otherwise. The first problem was to be solved using the elimination method, where you eliminate one variable by subtracting one equation from another, had a really nasty solution. My shields took a hit at that point, but I was still up and excited to go on to the next one. The next one however, I messed up quite a few times, backtracked, erased, said "No, that can't be right!" but eventually found the answer (which I messed up the first time on a really trivial mistake). After the third one, where I forgot one all-important minus sign, I was pretty grumpy. On the fourth one, I made another few mistakes and got very grumpy. We decided to quit for the day. Tomorrow, hopefully, I can go back with a fresh mind and work on them again!

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was quite chilly and blowing hard.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar23.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about bird's feathers, which are amazing! There are many different types that have important functions, and some we still don't quite understand. Most are held together by little barbs, but some, which are soft and fuzzy, don't have these, so they don't hold together. We also learned about preening, which is what birds to do to keep their feathers in order and to apply waterproof oil to them.

Resources

Bird Book

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on two activities involving houses in our Voila! book. The first asked us to read two French adverts for houses on sale, and answer some questions about them. To make it doubly hard, the adverts used French abbreviations! Next, we answered some questions about an apartment in the middle of town being sold.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Social Studies

Time: 120

A Study of Physical and Political Geography

Reflection

When everyone had arrived for our Geography lesson, this time at Amy and Lyn's house, we learned about slopes. Specifically, we learned practical ways to measure slopes. It was the perfect place for it, because Amy and Lyn's yard is extremely steep in places, and shallow and smooth in others. We started inside, by learning a bit more about farming on slopes in Ecuador, by digging terraces in the steep hills. Then we filled out a worksheet about slopes, and how to divide the height by the length and multiply by 100 to get the percentage value of the slope. After that, we went outside and measured some slopes. We used a tape measure to get the length, and a spirit level to make the bottom of the tape measure equal to the top so that we could get the height. When going up a steep slope, we had to do the measuring in phases. After that, we built an A-Frame, a big frame shaped like a letter A, which had a weight dangling down the middle, and a point in the middle of the bar where the weight would rest if the A-Frame was level. We used that to create a line of level ground across a hill. Funnily enough, the line wasn't straight at all, but followed a wiggly, curvy path across the hill. When we were done with that, we finished up and went to see Amy and Lyn's chickens!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/homeschool/HeiferStudy2009/Terracing/

Resources

Lessons from a Village Called Earth Geography Course

Mr Bill

My Dad

My mom

A-Frame

Spirit Level

Plumb Line

Tape Measure

Other Students

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs today, I read about re-enacting some of the famous battles from World War II, and how to make those battles reflect the true nastiness of war and not the glorified version we get in movies, books and games. I am all for it. If people knew what wars were really like, maybe they wouldn't be so eager to start them. I also answered all of the article questions to the best of my ability.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/WeekendatWar.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

March 24th 2009

Elective

Time: 10 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served Book to finish up my menu for Hungry Henry's Food Shack. I had a lot of fun creating awesome names and crazy descriptions for the foods. Now I'm hungry!

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/HungryHenry.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs today, I read about an energy-saving expert's Top Five Things You Can Do To Save Energy. They were mainly simple stuff that anyone could do, but there was one on installing a gray-water system, which sounded quite expensive! I enjoyed the article, and when I was done, I answered all the article questions.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/energysaver.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on finishing up lesson 25 of my Algebra 1 course. I started with the problem that had caused me so much grief yesterday, and found it was really easy. It's amazing how much difference a day can make! When I had rearranged the two equations in the system into forms my graphing calculator could handle, I plugged them in. I found that they were both rational functions, and so had two crossover points, one at zero and the other at a negative value. After that, I worked on the investigative problem, which was also really easy. I solved it using the substitution method. When I had finished that lesson, I went on to watch video 26, which was on solving linear systems using matrices! We started by taking a look at the function a^-1*b=x, which you can derive from ax=b by multiplying both sides by the inverse of a (a^-1). This is very important when using matrices to solve linear systems. Now, what is a matrix? A matrix is basically a table where you can store the numbers and variables from your functions. For our system, we can take the two equations of the form ax+by=c and plug both a and b values into matrix A, x and y values in matrix X, and both c values into matrix B. Then, if we multiply both sides by the inverse of A (A^-1), we get X=A^-1*B. We can then put this into the graphing calculator to find the values X. The beauty of this is that it can be used for solving systems with more than two variables, as we learned in the second exercise. I really enjoyed today's lesson, and I am looking forward to Algebra 2 next year, so that I can learn how to do all this stuff by hand!

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was cold to start with, but got warmer as the walk went on.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar24.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about birds on the farm. More specifically, chickens, my favorite domestic birds! Most of the stuff we learned about I already knew, but it was interesting none-the-less. We also learned about hatching chicks, which is a very complicated process, as we well know.

Resources

Birds Book

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on two activities involving houses in our Voila! book. The first asked us to read four adverts for expensive houses (including a castle!) and ask each other questions about them. The second built on that by asking us to listen to a conversation between a Realtor and some people wanting to buy one of the houses we read about earlier.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 40

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my worms project, I filled in some pages about where worms live, how they reproduce, and the different ways in which the move. Even a barrier such as the Atlantic Ocean has been crossed by worms, who came from England to America in the ballasts of settler's ships, which were then dumped out on American soil, where the worms have been a problem ever since. We also studied how much air space there is in soil and sand, by taking half a cup of soil/sand and half a cup of water and mixing them together. After that, we poured the mixture into a whole cup, and because only part of the cup was taken up by the mixture, we could tell how much water had gone in the holes between the soil.

Resources

Worms Eat My Garbage Course

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird study today, I drew out the rough designs for my Galapagos bird posters, and did a final sketch for the first one. Next time, I will scan it into the computer and finish it.

Resources

My Sketchbook

The Web

---

English

Time: 90 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I read The Fifth Elephant, Manual of the Planes and my cricket magazine for an hour and a half.

Resources

My Computer

---

English

Time: 120 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my rehearsal for the Neverending Story, we started with the Uyulala scene. After that, it was the wind giants scene, which was tricky to get right, but I think we did well. I start off the little poem in the beginning, and then we walk a circle around Atreyu as we say our lines. Lastly, we knock him off Falkor, the luck dragon, and he falls into the land of nightmares. After that, we went on to the scene with Gmork the werewolf, which is technically after the Spook scene, but not all the actors were ready so we did it first. After that, it was the Spook scene. With the music, it was very creepy. Lastly, we ran through the entire play. I am a Nothing in the last few scenes, and that means I have to to stand up there and wave my arms around for quite a while! I really enjoyed the rehearsal.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 25th 2009

Elective

Time: 10 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book to complete a page of exercises using the prefixes pro- and retro-. I worked on matching the definitions of some words using those prefixes to the words. I also filled in a table where I had to figure out the definition, word or prefix based on some clues given.

Resources

Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Economics

Reflection

For my economics today, I learned about the Roman Government and the lessons they learned about the law of tanstaafl (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch). They realized that to get more money, they had to tax their people more and more. The people didn't like that, so eventually the Roman Government chose another method, counterfeiting. Now they had lots of money to spend! Unfortunately, the citizens of Rome caught on to this pretty quick. When I was done reading through the article, I answered 19 of the 25 questions about the article.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/Economic4.pdf

Resources

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? Economics Course

---

Math

Time: 40 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by reading about the history of curves in geometry and their many uses in my How Math Works book. We use parabolic, elliptical, and hyperbolic curves for many things, including building bridges and calculating the trajectory of a moving object. We use them in satellite dishes, to catch incoming transmissions in the dish and then reflect them into the detector in the center. They also crop up quite a bit in nature. After we had finished reading the How Math Works book, we read some more about curves and the different mathematical minds that thought them up. Then we moved on to the practical part of the lesson, where we made a cone from modeling clay and cut it apart in different ways to create circles, ellipses, parabolas and hyperbolas. Lastly, we used two pins in a piece of paper as the foci for making an ellipse, and used two circles (plastic lids) to create a cycloid and a cardioid on a piece of paper.

Resources

My Math Book

Go Figure!

How Math Works

My Dad

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on the the last two activities of lesson five of our Voila! Course. The first asked us to pick a house we would like to buy (in a perfect world), and then explain why (in french, of course!). The last asked us to write an advert for a fictional house being sold.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Community Service

Time: 90 min

Community Service

Reflection

We started our work at the Pequest Fish Hatchery by putting some screws in the backs of our bird houses to hang them up on. Then we drove around the fields, hammering poles into the ground (well, Hunter's dad, Mr Brian, did most of the hammering), and hanging the bluebird boxes from them. I worked with a wrench to tighten up the screws on each one. When we were done, we went to the bird class.

Resources

Miss Liz

Miss Jessica

Other helpers

Bluebird Boxes

Poles

Wrench

---

Science

Time: 120

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our bird study this afternoon, we headed over to Pequest Fish Hatchery for today's course. Before the class, we put the backs on some bluebird boxes and put them on their poles in the field. We started off by playing a short game where we described our favorite birds, naming different features, and other people tried to guess what they were. I picked Frigate Bird, which I thought no one would get but my friend Hunter's dad guessed almost immediately. Bah! There were also less exotic birds named. After that, we watched a short presentation on birds and climate change. We discussed what it is, what its effects are and how we are contributing to it. Now for the bird bit, we discussed how global warming is positively and negatively affecting bird's ranges, food sources and habitats. After that, we played a game where we pretended that we were the birds we named earlier, and we rolled dice to see how global warming would effect us. I am glad to say that the frigate bird survived. Lastly, we went for a walk through the fields and the woods, and observed some bluebirds checking out the bluebird boxes! I really enjoyed the class today.

-Bluebirds

-Downy Woodpecker

-Juncos

-Robins

-Red Tailed Hawk

-Turkey Vultures

Resources

Miss Liz

Miss Jessica

Bluebird Boxes

Other Students

---

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird study today, I drew out the final sketch for my second Galapagos Poster. I drew the Woodpecker, Ground, Small Tree and Cactus Finches, with the foods they are evolved to eat. It's amazing how different their beaks are. Tomorrow, I will work on the sketch for the last picture!

Resources

My Sketchbook

The Web

---

March 26th 2009

Elective

Time: 10 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served Grammar Book. I had to identify some strange-sounding foods (most of them were pretty strange to me!), and write about them. There were many unappetizing foods, including snails, rotting shark meat and fish boiled in lye.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/grammar5.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

Economics

Reflection

For my economics today, I finished up answering the list of questions I started on yesterday. They were very interesting, and I learned a lot I hadn't known before from answering them. I had thought that we were still on the gold standard, but no, paper money and coins have no real value. They can get you things, because other people are forced by law to except them in trades, but they have no real value of their own. It was a very interesting lesson.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/Economic4.pdf

Resources

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? Economics Course

---

Math

Time: 120 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by working on lesson 26 of my Algebra 1 course. Today's lesson was on using matrices to solve linear systems. First, we went over some the things we had learned in the lesson, which were to do with identifying different matrices and writing out matrix equations. After that, we did some more experimentation with matrices, and moved on to the supplementary exercises. The first was on identifying the dimensions of some matrices, which was tricky because I kept getting the columns and rows mixed up. After that, I learned about adding matrices, which is easy, and multiplying them, which is a bit harder. When I had worked hard at multiplying matrices, I found that multiplying matrix A by its inverse (A^-1), gives you the identity matrix (Row 1: 1 0; Row Two: 0, 1 for 2x2 matrices). I also proved that the identity matrix times A, or A times the identity matrix, gives you A. Phew! After that, I used my knowledge of multiplying matrices to solve two linear systems with matrices, and finished up.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

My Dad

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was cold and raining lightly.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar26.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 60 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked on the the grammar section and the En Practique section of our Voila! Book. They were a little bit tricky in places! After that, we read through Miss Marie's corrections of our sentences that we sent her yesterday, and finished up.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about bird nests. Bird nests are varied in size, shape and composition, and can be built in many different places. We also learned about how you can get a good look at bird's nests.

Resources

Birds Book

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

I vacuumed our house, ceiling to floor, and took care to pull out and go behind furniture and doors.

---

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird study today, I drew out the final sketch for my third and last Galapagos Poster. I drew a Blue-Footed Booby, a Galapagos Penguin and a frigate bird, my three favorite Galapagos birds!

Resources

My Sketchbook

The Web

---

March 27th 2009

Elective

Time: 10 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book. Today I learned about the prefixes cir-, circum- and per-, and some of the many words that use them. I also identified the meanings of some words using those prefixes, wrote some analogies, and used the prefixes in some sentences.

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

Economics

Reflection

For my economics today, I finished up some small essays about things that people tell you are "for free" and the Bland-Allison Act. I also read a short essay about the Bland-Allison Act, and how it started a false economic boom that eventually went pear shaped and began the Great Depression.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/Economic4.pdf

Resources

Whatever Happened to Penny Candy? Economics Course

---

Elective

Time: 60 min

French Language

Reflection

For our french today, we went to our french teacher, Miss Marie's, house. We started by learning about different foods that would be served at a french cafe. The foods all looked good, and I was getting rather hungry just by looking at the pictures. Then Miss Marie asked us to do a small skit where I was a waiter and mom and dad were customers. It went well, and I learned some new words. Then we listened to a french conversation in a cafe, and translated it as best we could. Lastly, we learned about a french cafe with a strange name. The approximate English translation was "Short Straw". Interesting! With that, we finished up.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

Miss Marie

---

Community Service

Time: 30 min

Community Service

Reflection

I started my work at the library by sorting out almost all the DVDs, by checking their little cards to the DVDs. I finished checking all the movies from one to 1300!

Resources

Librarians

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird study today, I worked in the Gimp to finish the line work on my first Galapagos Bird Poster. It was quite a simple process, except when I accidentally selected the wrong layer in the Gimp before drawing and was forced to delete a whole chunk of my work. Next time, I will work on the coloring!

Resources

My Sketchbook

The Web

---

Elective

Time: 20 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For our history study today, we listened to our Story of the World Cd on the Modern Age. Today's stories were about how the emperor of Brazil was forced to step down after the country he spent his life making better educated, free, and more modern decided that an emperor was too old fashioned. We also learned about the Red Sultan of the Ottoman-Turk empire and the Armenia Genocide.

Resources

Story of the World

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For our evolution study today, we learned about birds. Specifically, we learned about brood parasites, birds that lay their eggs in other birds' nests, and warblers, which are very small birds. We also looked at our wall calender for spring, and read about the different things that have happened and will happen in spring.

Resources

Birds Book

Calender

English

Time: 90 min

A Study of Classical and Modern Literature

Reflection

I read my National Geographic and Cricket magazines for an hour and a half.

Resources

National Geographic

Cricket

March 28th 2009

Elective

Time: 10 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Finger Substitution in the Technic Book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson Book.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We started our dancing and singing class by doing some exercises, and playing a game called "Zip, Zap, Zop!". In "Zip, Zap Zop!", you would point at someone and say "Zip!". Then they would point at someone else and say "Zap!". When we got to "Zop!", we went back to the beginning again. We also played a harder variant, where we had to "Zip!" to the right, "Zap!" to the left, and "Zop!" across the circle. After that, we played another acting game, called Deli, where one actor pretends to be a character and enters a deli. The server has to adopt his or her physical traits and then guess what they are. Lastly, we sang our solo songs that we picked last week.

Resources

Miss Lia

Other students

---

English

Time: 60 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my acting class with Mr Danny, we began by working on the intro to our Jabberwocky plays. In it, Lizzy will read the Jabberwocky and I will translate it. Then all the actors will say the last line of the Jabberwocky poem together, and we will start on the first play. The first play was written by the other group, and it was really good. The dark wizard chortled so much he choked, and there is a fight scene that we'll work on next week. After that, we went into my group's play, which was a lot of fun. When we had worked through the blocking for both plays, we ran through it again and finished up.

Resources

Mr Danny

Other students

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

Art and Publishing

For my art today, I worked on my entry for the Starcraft II comic contest. I started by drawing my design out by hand, and then inked it on the lightbox. After that, I scanned it into the computer and colored it in the GIMP. I really like the shading on this piece.

Resources

Pens

Paper

GIMP

My Computer

---

Science

Time: 30 min

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For my bird study today, I worked in the Gimp to finish the coloring on my first Galapagos bird picture. I thought it looked really good after I added the shading, but see what you think!

Resources

My Sketchbook

The Web

---

Science

Time: 120

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

For the bird evening tonight, we headed over to the church and sat down. Mr Mike finished setting up his equipment, and then started his presentation on common and un-common NJ birds. It was very interesting, and he had some good bird stories. In one, he talked about how three different bird species used the same bird box in his yard (not all at the same time, obviously), and in another, he told us how a hummingbird has nested near his window. There were birds that we wouldn't think of seeing in NJ on his slides, but are actually quite common if you know where to look for them. After that, Miss Giselle came and showed us some birds! She brought in a Saw-Whet Owl, one of the tiniest owls I have ever seen, a Barred Owl, who was very cute, and a little Baltimore Oriole. Giselle is a Wildlife Rehabilitator, so she had lots of tales of injured birds coming in to her. Some of them, she cannot fully fix, and so those become residents at the Avian Wildlife Center. All the birds there tonight were injured and would never fully recover. I really enjoyed the bird evening.

Resources

Miss Giselle

Mr Mike

Birds

---

March 29th 2009

Elective

Time: 30 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down with Mr Tom and worked on my piano lesson for today. We started off by working in the Technique book, where we went on to a new song, entitled Up on 1, Pedal on And (Broken Cords). Then we worked on putting Aloha Oe hands together. Mr Tom says I have to work really hard on that one!

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

Mr Tom

---

English

Time: 240 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we began by going through scene 5, where Cairon tells Atreyu about the Great Quest. After that, we went on to scene 6, which I am in as a gnome in a hot air balloon. A very grumpy gnome who is flying his merchandise away from the merchandise-eating Nothing, and has encountered some large people who are in his way. I enjoyed that scene. After that, we just kept running through scenes 1-6, over and over again, until we got the time down to about 15 minutes. The rehearsal was great fun today.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 30th 2009

Elective

Time: 15 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And (Broken Cords) in the Technique book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson book. I did Aloha Oe hands separately and then together.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Language is Served book to write up a short biography of two organizations that help with world hunger, Heifer and CARE.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/grammar6.pdf

Resources

Language is Served Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 40 min

Current Affairs and World History

Reflection

For my current affairs this morning, I learned about president Obama's new plan for Afghanistan. It seems he wants to try and train the Afghan military forces, help the government, and empower the people. All this will lead to the weakening of the Taliban's power in Afghanistan. I hope it does! When I was done reading about it, I answered all the article questions.

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/Afghanistan.pdf

Resources

NY Times Current Affairs website

---

Math

Time: 60 min

Basic Math and Algebra 1

Reflection

I started my math lesson today by watching video 27, which was on systems of any type of function. It was really interesting. We started out by examining all the possible results of a linear and quadratic equation in a system. There could be one, two, or no solutions. The first few activities were to prove these different results. In the first, which was really easy and could have been solved in our heads, we took real-world data, and used that to create a system. After that, we moved on to two more, slightly harder systems where we used graphing and algebraic manipulation to find the answer. I paused the video and solved both of them by hand. The second one didn't have an answer, as there was no intersection point. After that, we went on to a quadratic and an exponential system, which had three intersection points! Lastly, we summarized everything I had learned in the video, and I got an extra problem to solve in the graphing calculator.

Resources

My Math Book

My Computer

Algebra 1

---

Physical Fitness

Time: 60 min

Lifetime Fitness

Reflection

We went for a walk down the road and through the woods. It was blowing really hard.

---

Science

Time: 30

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

http://www.freeunionschoolhouse.com/twiki/pub/Main/JackEduLogMarch2009/NatureJournalMar30.pdf

Resources

My Computer

Anemometer

Wind Direction Gauge

---

Elective

Time: 30 min

French Language

Reflection

For our French today, we worked through the first lesson of unit six in our Voila! book. Today's lesson was on different foods at a cafe, and we constructed two short scenes where we each played a server and a customer.

Resources

Voila! CD and Book

Ma France Website

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

A Local Study of Mountain Lake

Reflection

For our Study of Mountain Lake today, we began with dad giving another short talk on how he is helping amphibians in our community by observing the places where they cross the road to get to their breeding ponds. The numbers they record helps our township figure out which roads are major amphibian crossing points. When we had finished listening, we split into two groups, each of which did a different amphibian activity. My group learned about different amphibian and reptile habitats, and the other group learned about endangered salamander species. When we were done, we shared our findings with each other, and went on to learn about different frog and toad calls. When we had listened to the different calls a few times, we played a game where we had to imitate a frog or toad's call well enough that other people could recognize it. After that, we worked on our puppets for the Metamorphosis puppet show, and finished up.

Resources

My Mom

My Dad

Other students

Amphibian Class book

---

English

Time: 90 min

Speech: The Actor and Writer Speaks

Reflection

When we arrived at my rehearsal for the Never Ending Story, we began with a scene that I would have been in as a puppeteer, except the my puppet wasn't quite ready yet, and so I wasn't needed for that scene. In fact, I wasn't needed tonight until the director Steven Fredericks drafted me in as a menacing tree in the swamps of sadness. They didn't have the tree puppet ready for me either, so I stood up on stage holding a big long pole that was supposed to be a tree. Oh well. When we have the puppets ready, I can be a bit more useful.

Resources

Script

Other Actors

Steven Fredericks, Director

---

March 31st 2009

Elective

Time: 15 min

Music Practice and Music Theory

Reflection

I sat down and worked on Up on One, Pedal on And (Broken Cords) in the Technique book and Aloha Oe in the Lesson book. I did Aloha Oe hands separately and then together.

Resources

My Piano

Alfred's Piano Library Level 4

---

English

Time: 20 min

Grammar and Writing

Reflection

For my grammar today, I worked in my Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book, on the prefixes ad-, se- and re-. I used them in some sentences and identified the meaning of words that used them.

Resources

Red Hot Root Words Grammar Book

---

Elective

Time: 90 min

Art and Publishing

For our art study today, we went to the Philadelphia Museum of Art to go to the Cezanne and Beyond exhibition. We started out in a room full of Cezanne's paintings, and the paintings of people who tried to emulate his style. It was a small exhibit, and there were much fewer paintings by Cezanne than I thought there would be. I will start by focusing on the positive points of the exhibit, which were the paintings by Cezanne, some of the other artist's paintings, and the great lit-up photographs that were sprinkled around the exhibit. Now for the bad, I'm afraid. While some of the other artist's paintings had every right to be there next to Cezanne's work, some I felt were either not very useful, didn't grab me, or were going a bit too far in abstracting. The audio didn't really grab me, either. Anyway, at the end of the day, it is all a matter of taste, but I felt that I enjoyed this exhibit quite a bit less than ones in the past.

Resources

Cezanne Exhibit

---

Science

Time: 60

Evolutionary Study of Life on Earth

Reflection

When we arrived at the Hadrosaurus foulkii Exhibit at the Academy of Natural Sciences, I noticed how small it was. In this case, however, the size was absolutely fine. There really wasn't that much to be covered, and so they used the space less efficiently than they had in previous exhibits. It was a Victorian-feeling exhibit, an impression created by the piano music coming from hidden speakers (composed by a popular musician of the time), and the style of the signs. Hadrosaurus foulkii was discovered in NJ, was the first reasonably complete dinosaur to go on display, and so the middle space was taken up by a copy of the original Hadrosaurus foulkii skeleton, arranged in a life-like pose. Its original skull, constructed by Waterhouse Hawkins, lay nearby. Because they didn't have the actual skull of the dinosaur, the scientists sort of made up one. They asked Hawkins to model an iguana-like head. We still don't know what the head looked like exactly, but we know it probably didn't look like that. Anyway, it was a very good exhibit and I enjoyed it a lot.

Resources

Hadrosaurus foulkii Exhibit

---

Elective

Time: 60 min

Art and Publishing

For my art today, I worked on one of the pictures for my Terror of Porridge book. I had already done some of the inking, and today I finished it off. Mr Pete gave me helpful advice and ideas throughout the picture, and that helped a lot. I am really proud of this one, and I think it shows that my art style is evolving!

Resources

Mr Pete

Pens

Light Box

---