Ethan was back to most of his activities this week, which he was very excited about. Here’s what else happened during this week of unschooling.
January 6
The Physics Behind is a new book Ethan got. He has The Math Behind already and this new one is a lot of fun, too. The book has chapters about all kinds of topics and uses simple explanations to teach the physics behind each topic. This one here talks about whether the Earth is a double planet because of the Moon’s size. They explained how the Moon and the Earth orbit a common centre of mass called the barycentre, which is inside the Earth. If the barycentre was out in space, then the Earth could be considered a double planet. Very cool.Today’s word of the day was bossdom, which means having “the status, influence or power of a boss.”We headed out to the library to return a book and this gave Ethan a chance to ride his new scooter again.Ethan read while I searched for some books that would help Ethan learn more about ethics and morals. We feel that because he’ll have to make many choices and talk to many people over his lifetime, approaching those situations with compassion, kindness and empathy will go a long way.It was a nice day for a scooter ride.The books I got today.Ethan and I played Bears vs Babies and Ethan got to practice his card shuffling skills again.Ethan has been doing his 60-second exercise challenge twice a day. Tonight, he created a chart to track his progress.He added all the things he’s tracking, which is mainly the number of reps he can do in 60-seconds for each exercise, then he calculated the average reps.His progress, so far.Ethan then worked on his daily schedule since he would be starting up his activities again this week.He then read part of The Hardy Boys book we got from the library.Ethan was hungry and made his own eggs. He ended up eating 5 eggs!He finished up his new schedule before we read C.S. Lewis’ Out of the Silent Planet to finish the day.
January 7
Ethan started the day making assets for a new video about solving equations with logarithms.Watched a video about solving logarithmic equations because he just wanted to learn how.Ethan filmed and edited his video about solving equations with logarithms.Ethan did a new lesson about the ISS on Classroom Ready Science News.Ethan read an article he previously read about banning plastic straws.Ethan found a link to davidsuzuki.org in the plastic straw article and read more about the negative impact of plastic straws.Ethan found an infographic about going straw free. He also wrote his own essay about going straw free. Ethan posted the essay here.Here is the essay Ethan wrote and posted to his blog.Ethan practiced playing Minuet 3, the Happy Farmer and Gavotte.Ethan studied some history by learning about the Age of Pericles. Pericles was a soldier, orator and politician who fought against the Persians.He watched a video about Pericles.Ethan spent some time outside with his friends.When he came home, Ethan wrote a story about Pericles.He then did some studying on Mystery Science and learned about why dinosaurs went extinct.This story in Mystery Science was about energy transfer, and about which animals ate which animals to get energy..The story talked about how plants are at the bottom of the food chain, how they use carbon dioxide, water and sunlight to get their energy. The other animals either feed on plants or on the animals that eat plants.Ethan read his story about Pericles to me.
January 8
Ethan read a story and answered comprehension questions about honey bees from Classroom Ready Science News.Ethan learned how to make pie charts.Ethan learned what pie charts are on YouTube.Ethan practiced Gavotte today in preparation for his class later in the day. His teacher didn’t know that he had learned all of Gavotte on his own.Ethan did some language arts and learned about conjunctions.Ethan did a lesson on Mystery Science about where water comes from when you turn on the tap. The lesson was about where you would build a town by looking at topography and the types of plants in the area. He also had to look at what kind of soil is in each area, too. He then eliminated locations on the map until he found an ideal location.This was the lesson about where water comes from.He wrote a story using as many conjunctions as he could.He made an origami version of a Pac-Man ghost.After violin class, Ethan’s teacher said he could go on to Suzuki Book 2 and also learn how to read musical notes. He was very happy to hear that.As Ethan and I read his conjunction story, I was reminded of this cartoon about conjunctions from when I was a kid. We watched it together and it was as fun as I remember it to be.Ethan showed me the song about conjunctions he learned on Khan Academy called FANBOYS, which is a mnemonic for for, and, nor, but, or, yet and so.Ethan was going to take a bath and cleaned the soap scum using baking soda beforehand.
January 9
Last year, my friend Geoff asked on Facebook if anyone could solve the Rubik’s Cube and that he would buy lunch for the person that could. So I sent a link to a video of Ethan solving the cube. That was probably last spring and we were finally able to go out for lunch.Back at home, Ethan worked on some geometry today.He did well on the quiz at the end.Ethan drew out a protractor so he could measure how far he could do the splits. He got to 145°.He learned about the ellipsis from Khan Academy. He didn’t level up this go around.He completed a story about a pod of killer whales that needed help and practiced finding synonyms.For history, he continued to learn about Ancient Greece. Today, he read about Athens and Sparta and wrote a summary.He also continued learning about bees and did a story about how many of each type of bee live in a hive, their relative sizes and they main jobs.He did a lesson about whether we can see in the dark or not on Mystery Science.He did this experiment and learned that we need at least a little bit of light in order to see at night.He then wrote a story using as many ellipses as he possibly could.That night, we went ice skating. Ethan is getting better and better. There are a few kids who are regulars so Ethan likes playing with them. On the way home, we stopped to do some banking and I let Ethan do the transaction from start to finish.
He finished the night by reviewing his work with me and also doing his 60-second exercise challenge. He was able to hold a backbend for 61 seconds.
January 10
Ethan started his day working on equations and the whiteboard are his answers to the quiz.He also practiced solving for variables.For language arts, Ethan learned about possessives on Khan Academy.Ethan wrote about what possessives are and how to use them.For history, Ethan continued learning about ancient Greece by learning about Alexander the Great.He watched a Crash Course video about Alexander the Great.And he wrote a summary about Alexander the Great.After his studying, Ethan went outside to play with his friends.Ethan practiced playing Minuet 3, the Happy Farmer and Gavotte on the violin.Then, Ethan did a Mystery Science lesson on why gravity is different on other planets. Gravity is different due to mass and size is what he learned.He worked on the worksheets that accompanied the lesson and learned about how high one can jump on different planets.After taekwondo, Ethan came home and we checked over his day’s work. Once that was done, he had time to do any activity he chose, which happened to be doing some coding in Scratch.
January 11
Ethan started the day by helping me assemble an external SSD hard drive for my computer.On the table is the enclosure that will house the SSD. Ethan read the instructions and then performed each of the steps.Ethan had never really seen anything like this, but since he’s into Snap Circuits, I knew he’d like helping out and seeing what all these electronic parts look like. This photo shows the SSD, or solid state drive, which is a type of hard drive found in modern laptops and desktops.Here is the final assembly. The drive worked perfectly and it was great getting Ethan’s help with putting it together.For today’s math, he learned about like terms.He watched videos about like terms to get a deeper understanding of what they are.And he did some practice exercises to check his knowledge.He read more about honey bees in Classroom Ready Science News.And he read about bumble bees, too. We talked about what would happen if there were no bees on earth. We Googled and discovered that without bees, we would lose a large majority of the crops that feed 90% of our population, along with the loss of many other plants and animals.He wrote a story about bees.And he included a list of facts about them, as well.Ethan read an article about how much food Canadians waste.After playing outside with his friends, he came back hungry and helped make macoroni and cheese for his dinner.He ended up eating a lot of mac and cheese!After dinner, he continued his work and learned about modifiers on Khan Academy.He then switched gears and learned some more about Alexander the Great and his father, King Philip.He also read about Greek history and he answered some questions, too. He was in a bit of a hurry to finish so he had some trouble finding the answers to some of the comprehension questions.Afterwards, Ethan learned about the difference between phrases and clauses. This video mentioned the Conjunction Function song, which was cool because Ethan had watched it recently.He did the phrases and clauses quiz and got all thequestions right.He was done the work he scheduled for himself but still wanted to do a. Mystery Science lesson because they’re fun.He did the lesson about protecting a city from a hurricane.He learned about how budgeting affects what can and can’t be done and how to allocate resources.Once he was done with Mystery Science, he did some coding in Scratch.He then listened to the Wow in the World podcast.He worked on a geometric design using his compass while listening to the podcast before calling it a day.
January 12
Ethan had his symphony class this morning, which he was very excited about because it was the first session about the winter break and because he learned a new song.We had to hang out at the community centre while waiting for Ethan’s skating lesson to start, so Ethan practiced solving the 7×7 Rubik’s Cube.He was really excited about taking the skating lesson.His skating has really improved so he was placed in a small group with two other kids with similar abilities. The only unfortunate thing was that the helmet we had to borrow from the rink didn’t fit Ethan very well. His glasses kept falling and he couldn’t push them up properly because of the cage in front of the helmet. But in spite of not being very comfortable and not being able to see well, he did a great job with his skating.After we got home, Ethan worked on subtracting in scientific notation on Khan Academy.And he did some problems in his algebra work book.Practiced adding and subtracting in scientific notation.Ethan read a story about giant tortoises and answered some comprehension questions about the story.For grammar, he learned about mutant plurals, a type of irregular plural nouns.He wrote a story to explain how to use mutant plurals.He practiced Gavotte and the Happy Farmer on his violin.He learned about how to use the sun to help you if you’re lost.He practiced solving the 7×7 Rubik’s Cube.And he declared it cube day so he spent time solving the skube extreme.He wrote instructions to solve the 7×7 cube.And then he wrote instructions for solving the skewb extreme.
And that was the week! He really did a lot of Rubik’s Cube things this past week, so let’s see what he does next week.
LC Response
Well what an incredible week learning, creativity and engagement for Ethan. I am late in my responses again pushing it to the last hour on a Sunday evening. I hope you are all watching the total lunar eclipse right now!
I often find myself at a loss for words once I read his weekly reflections (and see all the photos and watch the videos). This week was no exception. I watched his latest simplifying logarithms video and it was simply put incredible. Ethan’s delivery, animations, passion shine through. He is on fire in math!
So I spend the week tracking his many highlights of learning, like the ones i showed you last week and digesting the submission. I take notes on the parts that stand out the most to me and then I seem to procrastinate, completing all of my other reflections almost two days ago. What to write? What will be helpful and have meaning for Ethan and you? Instead of guessing maybe you can help me in writing my responses.
How can I be of most service to you as an LC at this point this year?
Would you like me to focus on reflecting back the many accomplishments Ethan is making these days?
Or are there specific areas or resources you could use some guidance or help with?
The reason I ask is because in my professional opinion Ethan is exceeding his grade level in many areas and completely self designing as well.
I was so so excited to see the examples of the the writing breakthrough. I remember having the conversation with you in Nepal about your concerns about Ethan and his writing or reluctance to do more of it and now look at what he did in just one week!
I read his blog about the plastic straws, it was a clear and informative piece of original writing, wonderful. I learned a lot more about the enormous number of straws and creatures killed by plastic in the ocean. I appreciated his use of asterisks in order to footnote numbers. His personality really shines through not only in his videos but in his writing as well.
Do you have any concerns in Ethan’s learning now that he seems to be motivated to writing all sorts of genres. He is experimenting quite a bit now. It may be a good time to suggest some writing prompts or styles to try….or just let him continue to find his own way of expressing ideas and topics of interest to him.
I stee he is still enjoying his passions for origami and rubiks cubes. He is finding new and creative ways to engage in these passions too!
His oral language skills are developing at a rapid pace right now. In the logarithm video I noticed him using vocabulary and phrases that are quite advanced such as: intuitive, transfer, “just as a heads up”, dodecahedron, inverted, if you run into any problems…aka, indication to use the quotient property, nothing else to see here, fabulous expressions!, quadratic equations. So he is not only gaining a deep understanding for math concepts, but he possesses the language skills to express his knowledge to others. It is quite inspiring and impressive.
I thought you might be interested in some more resources for Ethan on ethics and morals
I searched for some books that would help Ethan learn more about ethics and morals. We feel that because he’ll have to make many choices and talk to many people over his lifetime, approaching those situations with compassion, kindness and empathy will go a long way.”
Ethan is doing a fantastic job of planning his daily and weekly plan. He seems to really enjoy making lists, but there are several other ways, maybe he wants to try some different techniques for oranizing and planning his learning and activities:
Do you have a dream? Want to be more organized? Explore mind-mapping, vision boards, planning techniques, decision making, and more….
Mind maps might be helpful for specific projects or topics whereas creating a bullet journal could help with his overview of the day, week, month and year. See if any of these resonate with Ethan you can find several resources in the LE Library Plan for Today, Plan for tomorrow: https://selfdesign.learning.powerschool.com/selfdesignlearning/library/cms_page/view/30873821
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