Unschooling Journal April 4-10, 2021

This week, I took all my classes, which were Taekwondo, swimming, nature school and violin. I also really got interested in stop motion for a few days, and made a few animations with a Go board! Other than that, I coded a Scratch project about hexadecimal text, which asks for text, and converts it to Hex!

LC Response

I am doing great. I am excited about the warm weather and am getting out for hikes and bike rides now. I am trying to get excited about gardening, but it feels a bit overwhelming just getting started.

I had an incredible week with the k/1 class, teaching symmetry, life cycle of the butterfly, flowers…so cute, everything is so exciting and new for them and they catch on so quickly!

We used a pretty cool tool called the Mira to make the symmetry drawings.

Thanks for answering my questions from last week!

If you have questions for me please write them in your reflections and I will do my best to answer.

Here the answers to our questions:

How is your chess playing progressing? You playing much these days?

Did you learn any new strategies by writing this article?

Yes, I am playing a little bit these days. It’s about the same as before, but I’m practicing more now!

I didn’t write about strategies for chess, I only wrote about how to play, and the history of chess.

How do you play? Did you make a mini golf club and balls out of paper too?

Have you played miniature golf?

The mini golf course was an idea I had a long time ago. You play by whacking a mini club (about 5 cm tall) at a mini ball made of clay. Yes, I have played mini golf on our road trip across Canada! It was very fun, and I want to go again 🙂

I wonder where the closest mini golf course is to you….I wish we could play together, that would be really fun thing to do together, but so would kayaking.

After Brilliant introduces new challenges and concepts, do you find yourself researching more about it?

Well, not all the time, but sometimes I find some subject that looks interesting on Brilliant and I do research it!

I made a video about the solar system. I did a lot of research into how big the planets are, and I also got some information from a book called “Solar System.”

Good for you, have you posted the video?

Oops, did I not share the link? Here it is: www.youtube.com/watch?v=w7Oj09ymSss

What sorts of changes did you make to your schedule and why?

I made changes to my schedule because I wanted to not have to think about what I will be doing today, instead, I can just look at a schedule. Sure is nice to write things down, it is too hard to keep all the to do lists in one’s head. I would be lost without my calendar, it reminds me and keeps me on track. There are so many dates to remember especially with having two jobs.

Week 30:

I made a snake game in stop motion!

Your stop motion filming are some of my favorites, I actually just rewatched the pac-man one. The snakes are so much fun to watch. How long does it take you to make a film of this length? How many shots?

I love time lapse as well, showed this one in class this week. The kids were saying eww and wow all at the same time.

The body of the caterpillar transforming into the chrysalis is astounding! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kVm5k99PnBk

I learned more about l’Hôpital’s rule. It’s basically using derivatives to find limits that end up as 0/0.

Well this looks very impressive, how is your mom following along? Has she got a better understanding of derivatives? Or is she like me almost completely in the dark?

And I made a coded version of the converter in Scratch!

I did What in The World comprehension questions about the Nobel Prize!

Do you enjoy these more basic read and respond comprehension assignments? Does your dad do the correcting? Or do you prefer to do research and answer your own questions?

I think both are excellent writing practice.

I took my writing about chess and put it on my blog! Find it here:

I did the next part in Big History. Big History is basically the history of the universe!

So cool, that you are into this. Right up your alley. I can’t wait to hear your perspective on the more recent human history that is in this project.

I want to know what you think the next chapters of history will be….big questions.

As much attention as the pandemic is receiving in the news, I think the issues of climate change are going to be hugely influential on humans and all living beings…let me know when you get to chapter 5: the modern revolution and the future

I can’t wait to have more conversations about this with you Ethan.

Today, humans are the most powerful species on the planet, with seven billion people interacting as one interconnected global community. Human society is so powerful that it affects the fate of the entire biosphere. Some geologists call it the Anthropocene epoch.

This modern revolution is the eighth major threshold of increasing complexity in this course. We began to link up as one society and accumulated vast resources of information. Because this collective learning worked on a much larger scale, innovation sped up. With the discovery of fossil fuels, humans could leverage energy resources that have been stored for hundreds of millions of years in the Earth. Standards of living have steadily risen and, for better and worse, humans have gained control over much of the biosphere.

If you want to learn a bit more about climate change check out: https://selfdesign.learning.powerschool.com/selfdesignlearning/library/cms_page/view/46656613

Let me know what you are wondering about…

Have a sunny and fun weekend

Natasha

Week 28 and 29 responses

Hi Natasha!

How are you doing?