Unschooling Journal Jan 23-29, 2022

by | Jan 31, 2022 | Blog | 0 comments

This week, I worked on a lot of math and science for NVOL. I also worked on the Winter Connection, which was a questionnaire about what I think I accomplished over the fall. I also did a bit of Brilliant, and I worked on a lot of What in the World! I also went to Taekwondo from Monday to Friday, and I did Violin on Tuesday.

I also went to Taekwondo leadership class on Saturday, and I also had an orchestra rehearsal on Saturday. I’m currently in an orchestra class called Concert Strings. But now, the conductor/teacher thinks I’m at a high enough level to move on to the next level, called Symphonic strings. But the problem is that the Symphonic strings are between 10:30 am to 12 pm, and Taekwondo is between 11:30 am to 12:15 pm. So I have to decide what to do; Taekwondo leadership or Symphonic strings. Taekwondo leadership is great because it’s fun and I like helping people, but Symphonic would be great because I could practice violin with a group that is more my skill level. So I’m not sure what to do!

Here is my Winter Connection. Find it here: https://howtodostuffwithethan.com/winter-connection-2022/
I worked on Brilliant this week. This was about probability. It was really fun because I like maths and probability.
I also worked on NVOL science and finished all the units from one to four. Now, I have to work on the Learning guides and tests for all of them. Science is really fun these days because I get to try out a school setting without really going to school!
I worked on unit 12 for math this week. Unit 12 was about probability. It was pretty interesting because I already knew all about probability but I was able to learn about it from a school perspective.
I corrected the unit 1 learning guide for NVOL science.
I finished the Learning guide for NVOL Unit 2 Science. The second one was easier than the unit 1 learning guide because it was more about what was in the course, rather than asking you to find it yourself.
I finished the Lab kif for science. It was really interesting because I was able to do science experiments.
I also finished a What in the World article about the Olympic Winter Games. It was really interesting to learn more about China and what’s going on with human rights there. I think it’s really sad and depressing to think about those people who are being “bullied” by the Chinese government.

LC Response

Hi Ethan,

How tough to have to choose between two wonderful opportunities! Let me know how you make the decision between taekwondo leadership and string orchestra. Whatever you choose, it’s nice to know your hard work and skill earned you both options.

I’m glad your NVOL courses continue to be valuable. Thank you for sharing the worksheet related to your gummy bear lab; I’m glad you had the chance to do this lab! I wonder if you have any more experiments or labs that you’d like to do to follow up, either related to diffusion or not. There’s an osmosis experiment with eggs you might like: If you soak an egg in vinegar for several days, the acid dissolves the calcium-based shell leaving just the (semi-permeable!) membrane surrounding the innards of the egg. If you soak the “naked egg” in a solute-dense solution like corn syrup, something interesting happens to the egg! See https://www.scienceworld.ca/resource/naked-eggs-osmosis/ if you’d like to know more or do it yourself. The topics you’re doing in science look like they’ll be wonderful learning too. Subatomic particles were not in the curriculum when I was in school but I wish they had been.

It looks like you’re doing probabilities in both NVOL math and in Brilliant. It’s a fun math topic that can be quite fascinating to learn about, with amazing applications in all sorts of areas. I’m glad that you liked learning about it with NVOL despite already having a lot of experience with the topic. How do you think learning it formally through school improved your understanding of probability?

It sounds like your lesson on the Olympics gave you a lot to think about. Are you an Olympics-watcher, and did learning about the human rights abuses in China and the talks of Olympics-watching boycotts make you have different feelings about watching the Olympics (or about the Olympics itself)?

Thank you for your Observing for Learning.

Best,

Shannon

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