Monday:
Today, I worked on (and finished) my writing project about star size. I also started the North Vancouver Online School (NVOL) cross-enrollment program, and I started working on my two subjects (math and science). I also did What In The World (WITW) about Afghanistan.
Tuesday – Saturday:
From Tuesday to Saturday, I didn’t really take that many photos, sorry ?. But on Thursday, I FINALLY did MEL Science (explained down below)! I also worked on coding pretty much the entire week. 🙂 Between those days, I got better at doing language arts, because I’m practising with WITW. I learned about how to write better comprehension answers to questions. I think what is challenging about language arts is finding the facts in the article. So I think the solution is just to keep practising doing articles. I want to be able to write clear answers and find the answers in the article easily. Anyway, here is everything I did this week.
And that’s what I did this week! I want to work on finding facts in articles next week, and I want to work on course 2 of NVOL next week as well. I’m looking forward to doing more MEL Chemistry experiments because some experiments looked really cool!
I also went to an in-person violin lesson this week, which was fun, because my teacher was able to play along with me, and play the accompaniment on the piano. I also went to Taekwondo Leadership class, where I worked on developing leadership skills, and helped some “Kids” (“Kids” is in quotes because they were other taekwondo leaders) “Learn” (Again, “Learn” is in quotes because I helped some taekwondo leaders, and they already know everything) their pattern.
Hi again Shannon!
How are you doing?
Here are the answers to your questions.
What makes you think that you need to work on finding facts in articles?
I think that I need to work on finding facts because a few articles back, I read through the entire article four or five times and honestly couldn’t find it.
You’ll learn a lot about the world as you keep practising with these articles. Do you follow news about the world from other sources too, or is this your first main experience with world news?
This is my first experience with world news, because we don’t watch TV, and I don’t really like news websites because I had not much reason to go. It was quite fun (because it was my first experience with news).
What kinds of songs and skills are you working on at the moment?
I am working on Vivaldi and Kuchler. Unfortunately not the four seasons, but close enough! I’m also working on scales.
How is teaching something in person the same and different?
Teaching in person is better because you can actually see the person you’re teaching, and you get to interact, instead of just making a video of yourself and uploading it. But it’s the same in the way that how I teach is the same (by going step-by-step).
Hi Ethan,
Thank you for another great Observing for Learning!
I think it’s neat that you got to do an affiliate program with MEL Science. I’ve heard great reviews of their chemistry kits from a few of my other learners, and the one you included photos of looks very interesting too. It can be a learning experience preparing to do a science experiment — it often takes a few read-throughs of the entire process, making sure you know which piece of equipment or what ingredient to reach for when, and being aware of the timing/pacing of the whole thing. It’s the same for cooking from a recipe too I think (maybe you found that too?). I hope you get to continue exploring MEL and continue to find it a fun and educational experience.
Identifying what you need to work on in reading comprehension of articles is an important insight about yourself, and it’s great to hear you’re planning to do lots of practice. What makes you think that you need to work on finding facts in articles? You’ll learn a lot about the world as you keep practicing with these articles. Do you follow news about the world from other sources too, or is this your first main experience with world news?
It sounds like it was exciting to get an in-person violin lesson. I imagine it adds to the lesson to be able to have piano accompaniment. What kinds of songs and skills are you working on at the moment? It looks like you worked on other great music skills, like the scale reading, this week as well.
Teaching the taekwondo leaders as if they’re kids sounds like a great way to learn. How did you find that experience? Learning to explain things takes a lot of practice, but you’ll already have quite a bit of experience explaining things for an online audience with your YouTube videos, which I imagine is helpful. How is teaching something in person the same and different?
I’m glad you’re liking your grade 8 math and science courses. Even though you’re already familiar with much of the material you’ll still learn a lot of skills that will serve you well, especially skills involved in working through a formal course. The Brilliant math challenge looks like fun; I love that kind of geometry puzzle. If you’re looking for more challenges like that, I wonder if you’d like going through the archives of the University of Waterloo math contests. The old contests are all online, and the final third (especially the final few questions) of each test really makes you think and apply your math skills creatively, so they can be interesting to use as challenge worksheets.
I wish I knew enough about video game coding to understand what was involved in matching the character’s foot angles to the slope of the hill, but it sounds impressive to me. Thanks for the great image!
Thank you for your Observing for Learning.
Best,
Shannon
This past week, there were a couple of highlights we’d like to mention.
First, Ethan did some science experiments using a science kit from MEL Science. He was very excited about trying the experiments, which turned out to be very cool and fun.
When he started the first experiment, he just dove in, but since he wasn’t familiar with the equipment and chemicals, he was a little disorganized and messy when doing the experiment. After that, he became better at keeping things organized and could enjoy the experiments even more. What was great was seeing how excited and engaged he was with the science experiments.
The second thing is how Ethan has been handling the Math 8 and Science 8 courses with NVOL. Ethan has been used to freestyling most of his learning, but since Math 8 and Science 8 follow the BC school curriculum, he has had to adjust to a new way of learning.
For example, he has had to learn to follow instructions and follow the processes specific to how each course is to be completed. He skipped ahead and took the main quiz but wasn’t happy when he got 2 questions wrong. He learned that even though he already knows the topics and felt confident in taking the quiz, he should follow the process by doing all the assignments, taking the practice quizzes, and then doing the final quiz.
The interesting thing is that he seems to really enjoy doing all the assignments and staying within the course parameters. He’s going through the assignments fairly quickly because he finds it fun to learn in this way. We also think it’s because he knows the topics already so we’ll see how it goes as he continues.
The other part of the courses that’s been new for Ethan is having to communicate with the teachers on his own. We think it’s been a good experience for him because it’s helping him to become more independent.
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