Here’s what Ethan did this past week…
February 2
February 3
February 4
February 5
From Mink, Ethan’s Soaring Eagle Nature School teacher:
Last Wednesday turned out to be one of the coldest days yet at Soaring Eagle! Many groups faced significant challenges staying warm in the sloppy snow and cold rain. It was a true test of everyone’s resilience. The good news is, your kids are very resilient! Some lessons learned the hard way included increased awareness around the water content in snow, and how that affects our gloves and clothing. Some kids who only brought one pair of gloves had completely soaked through them within 10 minutes of starting. It was a continual battle to stay warm throughout the day after that. That said, we had a fantastic time playing an organized snowball fight game called orcs versus elves in the forest as a big group in the morning. Afterwards, Scott shared the third part of his mythic story with us.
Mink took the ravens to the North end of the lake where she hoped they would be able to reach a very cool spot she discovered outside of program. They weren’t quite able to reach the intended destination, but found a nice clearing with lots of freshly fallen snow, where they set up a tarp and enjoyed lots of snowball fighting. Another game that was revisited from last week with just as much enthusiasm was Big Booty! After the ravens had warmed up to this rhythm game, Mink offered a fire challenge which ended with everyone warming up with some hot chocolate and marshmallows. Such treats don’t make it into the backpack most mornings, but last Wednesday felt like just the kind of day for it! Everyone ended in good spirits.
February 7
February 8
We spent part of today setting up a new desk for Ethan’s room. We like to buy used when we can and found a wall-mounted IKEA desk that we had our eyes on. We spent the afternoon putting the desk on the wall and helping Ethan to organize his “new” room.
Hello Ethan,
I made a few notes of highlights on which to comment on from your week. Thanks for once again responding to my questions in the last reflection and taking the time to answer them thoughtfully by email. I hope you know I ask a lot of questions because you asked me to, in order to deepen your learning. I hope you know I do not expect you to answer them all or answer in writing. You are free to consider them, ponder them or if you feel inspired to take the time to write to me. All options are welcome.
Went to a birthday party
The birthday looked like a lot of fun. How great that you just played Skee ball. Did it inspire your game you made at home?
- learning more about normal force.
writing about how to build a dyson sphere.
I once again had to look this up and this is what I found. I also attached some videos below:
First proposed by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson in 1960, a Dyson sphere is a hypothetical megastructure that completely encompasses a star and captures a large percentage of its power output.
I am curious to hear more about your thoughts and findings on Dyson spheres. I imagine I will in the next few weeks.
- learning about how to prove heron’s formula.
I did not know the name of this formula, but I remember proving it too when I was in middle school. I went to a bilingual french/english school and the French math program was very big on doing proofs. I feel like it gave me a very solid understanding of geometry. Did you know this tidbit of history?:
In geometry, Heron’s formula, named after Hero of Alexandria, gives the area of a triangle when the length of all three sides are known.
Also here is a nice proof/explanation of the formula. Have you ever seen this website, it seems right up your alley so to speak. Maybe there are many more areas of math to explore on Wolfram’s math world: http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeronsFormula.html
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/
history about galeleo’s experiments.
Nova has an interactive website based on Galileo’s experiements. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/physics/galileo-experiments.html
In case you wanted to follow up with a few Galileo inspired experiments of your own:
https://www.science-sparks.com/gravity-experiments-for-kids-galileo/
Some great quotes by Galileo. I see them as related to Self Design homeschooling. Do you see connections?
doing some questions about coffee & tea of classroom ready science news.
What did you learn about coffee and tea? History, cultural significance? How they are grown and harvested and turned into drinks we consume?
o you know about skee ball?
Yes, I do know about skee ball. I actually played skee ball at the bowling alley/food place/arcade for the birthday party!
Have you ever had the flu?
I don’t think so. My dad says no. 😉
Do you like having your notes to refer to?
Yes, it’s very helpful when making a video. It’s nice to know what the point of the video is when I’m making a video.
Do you find that taking notes helps you learn and retain more?
Yes, I think it does. It also helps me remember what the point of the video is and so I don’t go “umm” ing all the time. it helps me organize my thoughts more.
What were your findings or takeaways from this study [of fractals]?
Hmm, well, I learned that some things that have an infinite perimeter have a finite area!
Did you make any connections to fractals or snowflakes?
I learned about the coastline of Hawaii is very large! Because if you measure with 100 m yardsticks, you will get… let’s say 4000. But, if you use 10 m yardsticks, you will get… let’s say 4160. And if you use a ruler you will get an even bigger amount, and so on!
Also, I liked the note-taking strategy that you gave me. I might use those techniques in the future!
I also liked the skee ball demo and the sound wave video that you sent me! there were a few things I didn’t know like there is an equation for a sound wave!
😉
Thanks!
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