Unschooling Journal Oct 10-16

by | Oct 19, 2021 | Blog | 0 comments

This week was pretty eventful! I worked on two coding projects (both about platformers), and I also finished the unit 2 Send-in Assignment for NVOL! I also worked on a bunch of Science News and Canadian Reader! And I did some writing too πŸ™‚

The SIA was a quick test because it only had 3 pages. But I checked it three or four times just to be safe πŸ™‚

Anyway, here is a detailed account of what I did this week.

I finished the SIA (send-in assignment) for NVOL and sent it in. This one was about how operations are ordered, and how you calculate long strings of calculations without messing up, also known as the order of operations. This was fun, but boring because I already knew what the order of operations was.
I made a mini Mario character in my Super Mario game.
It turns into a big Mario when you touch a mushroom! You get an extra life, and you get big with a bigger jump! This was exciting because there are lives added to the game πŸ™‚
I worked on NVOL science about whether a thing is living or non-living. I had to mark if a thing could grow, reproduce, evolve, etc. It was pretty fun!
I started an article about red dwarfs. I’m not finished yet, so I’m going to work on it next week. I wrote about how they form and what they are so far.
I did Science News about plant-based milk.
This was about potato milk? I just answered the questions. The potato milk was cool but seemed gross =P
I did a lot of NVOL math this week. Mostly, I did the SIA, but I did look at some lessons too! I like NVOL because it’s fun to do all the questions and stuff.
I worked on…
Vertical scrolling for my platformer game! I also added wall sliding. It was fun because coding is always fun. But the game is improved too, and I’m happy about that.
I did some Brilliant this week. I did a few problems with chemistry and logic. Brilliant is fun these days because I haven’t done it for a while.
I also had a Taekwondo Leadership test on the weekend about simple Taekwondo fundamentals! I had to memorize it last week, and I got 97.5%! It was pretty fun! It was fun because I practised, and it wasn’t stressful at all πŸ™‚
I did some What in the World about COVID-19 and the Delta variant. It was fun.

In conclusion, this week was fun, with ups and downs. The writing was fun, and the math was fun, but the science, not so much because the website isn’t designed well πŸ™

LC Response

Hi Ethan,

It’s great to hear you’re enjoying the NVOL courses you’re taking, and finding value in the send in assignments despite the topics being something you already know. Checking your work three times on a test is a great idea; did you find anything to change on any of those three checks? Sometimes I find something to change on a second or third check but not on a first, so it can be very worthwhile to do a few read-throughs. I like the look of the science worksheet chart about life that you did. Were there any properties of life that you found surprising? If you’re starting in on a biology unit, there might be some resources in the Life: What is it? topic in the Learning Experience Library that interest you. When you say your science website isn’t set up very well, are you taking about the NVOL science?

Thank you for sharing the MEL Science video you made. I’d be convinced to try MEL after watching it if I were a home learner I think; it really does look like one of the better ways to try a chemistry lab activity form home. The critiques of it you gave seemed fair too. Do you think that receiving the kit for free and doing the affiliate program could have influenced how you gave the review (or your opinion of the kit itself, for that matter)?

It sounds like you’re pleased with your work on the games you’re coding, finding it fun and being satisfied with the results. I’d be interested to hear more about just what is involved in making the Mario game.

Congratulations on doing so well on your taekwondo leadership test! Once you’ve done this program, are you then a qualified instructor, or are there several more courses or additional requirements before that can happen?

Thank you for your Observing for Learning.

Best,

Shannon

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