Wednesday, December 21, 2011

The End of the Year Recap

As you all know, in four days is Christmas and tomorrow school for my town will be done. This half of the school year has been interesting. I started off by doing Vocabulary, Logic, Writing, Science, Math, Reading, History etc. Lately we have had some changes. We started a new subject Geography, and we finished logic. We also stopped doing writing since we were doing Nanowrimo.

At school school, I did Technology and Orchestra. After the first trimester, I just did Orchestra. In the first trimester, I did cross country which improved my stamina. Now as a winter sport, I’m playing basketball. Our basketball team is 4-1.

Frankly, I think that the school year has been great. I have worked hard to get my work and I got a good beginning of the trimester.

This trimester I liked Vocabulary for its fun words. I liked History for its interesting subjects like the Black Death and China's Song Dynasty.

Thursday, December 15, 2011

The Boy’s King Arthur

            I just finished up the book The Boy’s King Arthur.  The author is Sidney Lanier. Now this book is the easier version of Le Morte D'Arthur, which is French for "the death of Arthur". In the bigger book, it goes into more detail. In my book, it touches on the main stories of Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.  Here is a list of 10 qualities knights in the 1200s would have.
·          Brave
·          Help maidens
·          Help the poor
·          Do quests
·          Be kind
·          To be a knight known for his niceness
·          To not be rude
·          To be strong
·          To destroy enemies
·          To hail to the king

Knights in the 1200’s and “knights” nowadays might have some things in common, like
they both should defeat enemies. Something else that they have in common is they should
be brave.

Though many things in my list are the same, there are some differences.  Modern-day
"knights" do not always make it a duty to help women, but knights of the 1200’s made
sure that if a maiden called unto them that they were there and ready to help. Also
“knights” of today don’t take the pain. If they are hurt, they get out of battle and get
healed. Knights in the 1200s were expected to take the pain like a man. 

 Seven qualities of a modern day knights are…
·          Brave
·          Help people in need
·          To destroy enemies
·          To be kind
·          To have an education
·          To stay together and work as a team
·          To get along

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

My Learning Environment


            My learning environment is best at home at the table or on the couch. Both are without music. Now I like the table because it is big and this allows me to put all my stuff on the table. (Although sometimes my parents get mad at me for not cleaning up my stuff. I then have to put it away.) I also like to read on the couch. See I have books that are assigned to me and I like to read at the couch because the story is somehow easier to read. It also relaxes me.
            Some of the stuff that I like to do, but should not are listening to music and dilly-dally. I like to listen to music because it is fun, but sometimes the songs get in my way of learning especially when I am reading. Perhaps it is not a good idea to read and listen to songs. I also like to dilly-dally a lot. If I just got done with a subject that took 45 minutes, then I will just play with the cat or read a book for 5- 10 minutes. I know that I should not do it, but I say to myself that I can and I just cannot help myself. I will try to stop listening to music and try to stop dilly-dallying.

Thursday, December 8, 2011

My Favorite Subject

It is true that I have a lot of subjects. But my favorite is Vocabulary. Vocabulary is as you might know a time for learning new words. Every other Monday, I write my new vocabulary words. Some new words that I learn that I already know are 'agent' and 'cope'. But then there are words that I have never heard of like 'impunity' and 'bias'. I also have to do some exercises. They are things to help me out on my words. They might include stuff like this.

            1. Which of these can abate?
            A. Wind          C. Car
            B. A Kitty       D. A fire
            2. Christmas: presents: 4th of July: ______

            3. Mail Truck: Mail: _____: garbage

            On Wednesday, I read a story and fill in questions about it. The story includes all the vocabulary words that I used on Monday. On the next Monday, I do Lincs tables. Lincs are basically writing my vocabulary words and a reminding word. Then I write a short short short story that has to include the remaining words and that word’s vocabulary definition. Now the point of Lincs tables is to sort of learn the vocabulary and it is kind of like a test.
            Vocabulary is my favorite subject because it is interesting to learn new words. It is also cool to use them in my daily language. In fact, one of my words last week was 'lax', meaning that things were not strictly enforced. And at our middle school, you can take tests on books, but it is lax.  When my mom and I were talking about this yesterday, it was a perfect time to use that word.

Wednesday, November 30, 2011

What Does Thanksgiving mean to me?


                                   
            The third Thursday of November is Thanksgiving. This is the day where we eat turkey and other delicious things. And after the food has been consumed, then some families watch football games. But I have a different approach on Thanksgiving.
            Now how I think and you do may be different. But I think that our Thanksgiving was a good example of how my approach is. To me, Thanksgiving is a time to have fun and socialize with family or friends. Our Thanksgiving started at lunch where we ate very delicious food. Then instead of watching football for a pointless amount of hours, we played a game where everyone laughed. We socialized and laughed. After the game of laughing, we went outside and played a couple of games. Then we had to go home, but my Thanksgiving was awesome despite having to go home.
            If you sat and watched television for a couple hours, did you actually talk very much? You probably didn’t because you were busy watching the game. What if you have family that came down from Hawaii or Alaska and they stayed only for Thanksgiving and then they left without them telling you how they were doing.  All I’m saying is that if you are going to get together, this is a perfect day to socialize and laugh together.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

The First Day of the Second Trimester


     Today is the first day of the new trimester. In some ways it feels like a new school year.  It feels like a new beginning. It used to be that I would not start homeschool until 9:20, when I got home from my morning class.  Now, I start at 8:00.

      I am looking forward to vocab. It is fun learning about new words like beseech and impetuous. I also like the stories at the end of the vocab. lesson. I am happy for history because we get to learn about the Crusades, the Hundred Years War, the Mongol Empire, Knighthood, Ireland and more. I love history because it is interesting to learn about the cultures that had good war tactics or good trading. And it is interesting to learn about cultures that invented things like porcelain.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Trimester 1

     Today is the last of trimester 1. There are 3 trimesters in the course of the year. Each one of the trimester are 60 days long. I’m telling you this because this trimester has been an intersiting one.
     This trimester has had a lot of good things and bad things. Some of the good things were watching a movie on a Friday, after I got all my work done early. Also there was the day that I got to play video games because I got done early. Now my intenion is not all screens because I liked when we went out to eat ocassilly. It was a nice surprise. Another was the first day of school. I was pumped up. Even though my ”pumped up” personality dropped a bit, I still like homeschool better than public school. Even though, I have more work than at public school, I think that it is well worth the price. I think that because I have always been excited about having school. Although I like school, sometimes I wish that I didn’t have school because it got boring.    
    Although I think that public school is bad, some of the things that I did wrong in homeschool were that I could not do outlines. I just could not do outlines. But now I am doing much better. Another thing was that on my wiki, I got some stuff wrong that mom did not like. But it is fixed now.
            In this last 60 days, I felt a great joy of the learning that I was getting. It was great.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

If I had a million dollars

    Mom's Note: As we are preparing for the end of the trimester, Spencer was given a "light" writing assignment for his blog.  You'll probably notice his blog posts have slowed down considerably...that's because we're hitting editing and revising very, very hard.  Very.       

            Every kid’s dream is to have a million dollars. They could buy so many Hotwheels car or so many Barbies. And then maybe, they could buy some more stuff like a new car and a nice new Wii and Playstation. But that's not what I would do.
            I would keep 100,000 dollars to get a good start in the real world. And the rest I would give to my family and to the people in the world.   For example, to the people in Kenya that have no homes.  I would get a job, because if I quit my job, I would be lazy all day long and get fat. So I should think of other people, and they should all share the money instead of me getting it all and letting my family be poor.

Thursday, November 3, 2011

NaNoWriMo

                                                                                                                                                                                    The month of November is NaNoWriMo. In other words, it is National Novel Writing Month. Last year, my mom and I did it and we wanted to do it again this year. In Mom’s division, she has to write a 50,000 story in the month of November. In my division (Young Writers Program) you can have any word count.
Last year, I couldn’t type very well and I was just an amateur, so I got 11,000 words(my aim was 10,000). This year, I’m going for 30,000 words.  My story idea for this year is to have two thirteen year old buddies that get and find treasure in this cave. They accidentally broke a brick in one of the main character’s wall at his house, where they find a map that leads to the treasure that one of the kid’s great-grandfather had found.

Friday, October 28, 2011

This Weekend


                                               

This weekend was an okay weekend. This weekend, my family and I went to Burlington where we watched soccer games. My sister and our foreign exchange student had a tournament. Kirby, who is my sister, lost all four of her games this weekend. She played two on Saturday and Sunday. In their fourth game, they scored their first goal all weekend. I think that her games were less exciting than Jaycob’s games.
Our foreign exchange student, Jaycob, has a good team and he is a good soccer player, so naturally they won some of their games. On Saturday, they beat a really easy team, and lost to a tricky team. The next day, they beat a blue team and lost to a team that was awesome.  I’m not saying that we were bad, but the other team was really good.
That was all that happened soccer wise. After we got done at one o’clock on Saturday, we went to something to eat and then went to our hotel to go swimming. Jaycob and I played man ball with Jaycob’s soccer coach and some of Jaycob’s friends. Man ball is where we had goals (the space in between chairs) and you try to get a floatie toy into the goal. We lost by one point. The coolest room we have ever had was the one that we stayed in. In our hotel room the bathroom heated up and you could dry off after you got done taking a shower. Some more fun things were a microwave, a fridge, and two beds and a popup bed. It was nice because we have six in the family and that is how many it was made for. The only bummer was the drive to and fro. It was two hours long. It was a bummer because it is a long time for me to sit in a car.
           

Wednesday, October 12, 2011

Tao Day Eight

Today I chose this saying      
     This saying has to do with one of the first saying that I chose. The saying said to keep your mouth shut. I still have not yet done that so today this is a reminder.

  Shut your mouth.
Be still. Relax.
Let go of your worries.
Stay out of the spotlight.

Thursday, October 6, 2011

Tao Day Seven

The saying that I choose today was:

Don't call attention to yourself.
Don't make a scene.

       When we are meeting a friend, my brother makes a big scene because he wants to be all big and buff. ( but he really isn't). It is very annoying when he does that because they I have to tell him to shut up in front of my friend. So today this is a lesson for my little brother, Elliot.

Monday, October 3, 2011

Alfred the Great

On Friday I was asked to write a history comp. Today I revised it. This is what it looks like.

                                                     Alfred The Great
Imagine yourself with your ten friends in a corner of the playground that only you are allowed on because you guys are a popular gang that nobody likes to hang around, but then some of bigger kids start fighting with your friends. Now you are the leader of the gang and you have to take action. Your friends join you when you start throwing punches. After a little while, you beat them up that they run. Then you shout to them to never come back. This is how Alfred the Great held his land from the Vikings. The Vikings arrived and started fighting with some towns. Then Alfred the Great took action and pushed them out of his land. Then he made them made them sign a treaty to never return. This is like how you shouted to never return.
            Alfred the Great was born in 849 in the town of Wanating or the modern day name, Wantage. He was the ruler of Wessex(see picture). . Alfred the Great ruler the Anglo-Saxons in England from 871 to 899A.D.
 He defeated the Vikings in 878 and made them sign the Treaty of Wedmore which was a treaty where the Vikings became Christians and Guthrum, the Vikings’ leader was to be Alfred’s adoptive son. One important date is in 871 when he was crowned king of Wessex. Another important date is that in 878, Alfred the Great defeated the Vikings. He started fighting the Vikings in 877 and in the course of a year, he defeated the Vikings. In 899, he died in Winchester, England.
            Alfred the Great was a lawmaker, scholar, and a king. He encouraged education because he hadn’t had a proper education. In fact, he didn’t even learn to read and write until after he was king!
            Alfred the Great was indeed great because he saved the kingdom from enemy invaders. He had quite a lifetime. He also was a very good king and helped education grow. He was a good fighter and leader, but he was a good educator. Alfred’s influence still works today, because several schools and libraries where named after him.







Quennell, Marjorie, and C. H. B. Quennell. "Alfred the Great." Everyday Life in Roman and Anglo-Saxon times. New York: Dorset, 1987. 180-86. Print

Friday, September 30, 2011

The Five Day of the Tao

The saying that I chose today was:
     With enough practice,
you could come and go without a trace,
speak without stumbling over words,
do complicated math problems
in your head.
     I think that it would be awesome to do complicated problems in my head. So now I need to practice practice practice. It would also be really awesome if you could go without a trace. I think that it would be awesome to do all that stuff, so now I must practice

Thursday, September 29, 2011

Day Four of the Tao

 I chose this saying:


When you have nothing to say,
you may as well keep your mouth shut.
     
      My dad says that if you don't have anything nice to say then don't say anything. Now I don't always follow that rule, but the saying that I picked today is exactly like that saying. I think that if you don't have anything that isn't going to hurt my feeling then don't do that.

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

Tao Day Three

The saying that I chose today was:

Trust and respect people.
That's how you earn
their trust and respect.

This verse means that if you earn people's trust then they will. This saying applies to me quite a lot because my dad said that I have lost his trust because I like to do things that I'm not supposed to do.

But now I know that I shouldn't do those things. I think that I will work on that.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Tao Two

Today I chose this verse:

"If you drink too much, you get drunk.
The engine won't start
if you're always tinkering with it.
If you hoard wealth,
you fall into its clutches.
If you crave success,
you succumb to failure.
Do what you have to do,
then walk away.
Anything else will drive you nuts."

It is about if you do too much stuff, then you will have to suffer the consequences.

The thing that I do too much and have to suffer the consequences are when I add the little touches to projects that take quite a while and then I'm out of time. I'll give you an example. Last week, I had to do a project on a new website. The website was cool because you can put words inside of other words. I was messing around with it and then it was the day that it was due and I still had a lot to do. So I stopped doing all that and got it done. I think that this saying particularly appealed to me because I like to add the finishing touch to everything.

Monday, September 26, 2011

Tao

For the next week or so, I am going to read poems about Tao. It is kind of hard to understand, but it is still interesting.

The guy that made it easier to understand is a guy called Ron Hogan. The saying that I chose for today is: 

"Stop doing stuff all the time, and watch what happens."

This means that instead of taking and doing stuff, just stand back and watch. I've had a logic lesson that has this same message. The lesson was lesson two - it said to be a good listener and just watch and listen. I like this saying because it refers to me a lot. I like to have a good time and talk quite a bit, but after this I think that I am going to try to be a better listenter and watcher. If I do this then maybe, I will become smarter.

Wednesday, September 21, 2011

Science Experiment Day


Today we some did neat and interesting science experiments. The first one that we did was a one where we created some flat paper boats. Then we made a notch in the back where we put the “motor”.  We made four boats and on three boats were chewed bubble gum, soap and facial tissue. On the last one, it had no “motor”.  

 Then we put them in a tub of water and let them float. The facial tissue, gum and the one with no motor were the ones that didn’t move very much, but the soap one went like crazy. It went in two circles and then finally stopped. 

The next science experiments that we did were a one where we put pepper in a bowl and then dipped items in. First we dipped a piece of facial tissue and gum and the pepper kind of moved out of the way but no more. The pepper was like scared of the soap because when we put it in, the pepper moved out of the way and quick.

From left to right, soap,facial tissue, chewed gum, and none
This is  me (Spencer) dipping the soap into the peppery water
This is after when we discovered that the pepper goes away from the soap

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Some Good Things That I Did Yesterday

Yesterday, I felt that I did better with my control than the day before.

After yesterday's cross country meet, I wanted to go to Asian Buffet because some of my cross country team was going. Even though I felt really sad and mad that I could not go, I dealt with it and decided that I don't need Asian Buffet so I stopped crying and got over it.

We had a track meet yesterday where I did some good things that made myself happy.

1. I stayed behind at the playground when one of my friends(Aaron) was going to ditch one of my other friends(Colton). Even though, I was mad at Aaron for leaving the playground, me and Colton still had fun.
2. Then while we were at my cross country meet, me and Colton got to ride in the golf car that showed the runners where to go. Then Colton accidentally dropped the girl that drove us Ipod Touch. Then I went to look for it when Colton went home. Turns out that Colton actually had the Ipod.
3.  Even though I didn't get to go to Asian Buffet, I still was nice to everybody at home. I even helped Elliot put together his new Lego thing that he got for his birthday.

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Yesterday


Yesterday, Mom asked me to read a page out of a book that was about manners, because me and my siblings haven’t been getting along very well. We like to fight a lot and we like to antagonize each other, so that is why Mom made me read a section out of the book. Some of the things that the book mentions were that you should be aware of your surroundings and should pay attention to other feelings.
            Some of the ways that I did those two things were that I cleaned the table even though it wasn’t my night for dinner duty, so I think that that was nice. Also I normally do the dishes and yesterday I helped my sister with her side of doing the dishes. Me and them didn’t fight as much as we normally do so that is good. One more thing to wrap it up and that is that yesterday I felt a lot happier than those other days when me and my brother or sister would fight.
            Some of things that I still need to improve is that I still need to stop fighting. It isn’t like we were fighting majorly, but every now and then either me or him would get a little angry at him. One more thing that I noticed was that I like to tease a little bit, so I MUST stop doing that.
            Things that I plan to do for today are trying not to fight with my brother. Even if he jumps on me, I will push him off and walk away. Also I need to stop teasing. When I do that I tend to get others mad. Also my dad made a good point when he asked me,” What do you get out of it”.

Monday, September 12, 2011

Mom's note: I was impelled to switch out Logic studies for what I called Guidance.  I felt Spencer was in need of a little soul-searching and reflection this morning.  The blog entry below is a summary of his lesson.

Today we had a new subject , Guidance. I know that I like to fight with my brother and sister a lot and my mom knows that too. So today instead of logic we did guidance.

I learned that we have to look at our surroundings and we have to look at the people that we are mad at and look at how they are feeling. If they are feeling like they have had enough, then just leave them alone. If they are antagonizing you, then just leave them and tell a parent. Before I used to just fight until one of us was on the ground crying. Now that I look back on it, I really feel bad about what I did.  The book that I read from was Manner Made Easy by June Hines Moore. It was a good book that explained the reason that we should not fight.

Friday, September 9, 2011

Done!


            Today I got done at two fifteen. Even though I’m still writing my blog, I will be done at two thirty. I’m so happy I’m going to do an Irish jig when I get home at three thirty.
My favorite thing today was cross country. We got to play octopus tag. It is like tag but when you get tagged, you stand in the spot you got tagged and try to tag other people. We also took it easy and didn’t run very much. The worst thing today was my right leg. It hurt yesterday and it still hurts today when I walk on it. It is not like I am going to die from it but it just hurts. Today I really tried hard to get my work done and it paid off in the end.
            The most valuable thing that happened to me today was that if you work well, you can get valuable rewards. For example in tech today we got to play games because we got our presentation done. In math, I had to do two rework problems instead of four or five that I missed before. One more thing is that I did my science wrong and I knew. So Mom made me rework it over again. So Do it good the first time and you don’t have to do it again.

Thursday, September 8, 2011

Taking Care of Business


           Today I was taking care of business in every way because I got done at thee thirty. Yeah for me. I’m so happy that I don’t have to do anything past three thirty. Today my favorite subject was Math at Smokey Row. Okay, it was going to Smokey Row, but I also liked math because it was easy and a break. Tomorrow is my favorite day of the week because we are almost done with school but not done with it.

            The least favorite thing that I did today was Science. Normally, I like science but there were not any science experiments. Those are my favorite part because they are exciting and I don’t know what is going to happen. Over all today was a pretty good day except that my leg hurt(and is still hurting a little bit) at cross country when we ran.

Wednesday, September 7, 2011

Two-Thirty


            Today I decided that I would get done earlier that three. Well I did by thirty minutes. Yeah I feel so overjoyed. Okay maybe it wasn’t that big of an accomplishment, but I still was happy that I got done early. Also I happy because yesterday I spent until seven doing homework, but I had the track meet in the day too. 
Today in Technology, we worked in partners and did a history about something. My partner, and me Aiden are doing ice cream. It wasn’t my idea but after hearing the other students ideas, I felt that we picked an okay one. The other groups picked the toilet, the tennis shoe, the boomerang, and one other that I couldn’t remember.
Today in Orchestra we got a new song called Gauntlet. It is AWESOME like awesome can be. We have a concert in a month and we are playing Spy vs. Spy, Gauntlet, Rocky Top (like the one from Tennessee) and Fiddler on the Roof.

Changes in History and First Meet


The change in history is that instead of reading one subject, I have to read two. This week I have to do Islam for my regular reading, but I also have to do Monasticism for a minor reading.

           Today was the first cross-country meet. It was okay, the fun part was seeing my friends and the bad part was were I ran and almost fainted. Okay maybe I didn’t almost faint or faint at all, but it took almost two hours to feel my legs. It was still fun to run with friends against the other kids.

Thursday, September 1, 2011

Joyful

Today I am happy because I finished at three o’clock. Yesterday took a while and I was unhappy that I got done at three. Today I learned that if you drop two things at the same height that the shape and the weight matter. Also I learned that when adding decimals you let the decimal number fall down. What I mean is that when you add digits with decimals you line them up and then you bring the decimal down.
            
Struggles today were that I had a doctor exam during the time me and my dad do math. So I had to do math later during the afternoon. Guess what, I still got done at three. I didn’t like how I woke up early this morning. I woke up early yesterday too and by the time that it was noon, I was wiped out.

Do I like homeschool? Well I would say yes and no. The major thing that is awesome about homeschool is that I have freedom because I can move around the house. Another is the fact that I can take a nap(I’m pretty sure they don’t let you do that in school).One of the major downers is that I can’t see my friends. One more reason that homeschool is a bummer is that I don’t get exercise.

I have learned that homeschool is a tiring yet fun and interesting. Although at school school it’s still tiring, so it’s not that bad. I think that during this two and a half weeks that school has been going on, it has been more educational than public school. It is nice that parents can work with the student one on one rather than in a classroom where the teacher has to work with all the students and try to teach that way..

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

A long long long long long long day

Today was a long day. I had to rewrite my composition on The Grand Canal. That took quite some time. Then I did a bunch of worksheets and that took a while. The best thing that happened today was the fact that every other subject other than history took less than hour. The worst thing that happened today was that I got done at seven o’clock. I just had a lot to do today and it took a while, so I had to do work until seven. An interesting thing that happened today was that I joined cross country. It was very tiring and athletic. We first had to jog one and one-half miles. That was tiring. Then we did some short sprints that weren’t that bad. One of my friends said that tomorrow is going to be harder. I feel scared.

Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Intersiting

Today was an interesting day because I got my new violin after having the same violin for three years. I was almost done with all of my homework at noon but had to work to four o’clock. It was a very interesting day today. My best thing today(and yesterday) is that I that I have been on task. Yesterday was the first day that I actually got done at 3:30. I was content until this morning when I thought that I would go back to having to do homework until 5:00 but I felt different and proved the prophecy wrong. Today’s hardest thing was math. Math wasn’t hard, it just was the longest thing I had. The science test I toke today was a bit hard but it was mostly easy. The funniest thing today was being done with today. I was tired today, not from sleeping, but from spinning to much in one swirly chair.

Thursday, August 25, 2011

A Short Day Turned into Long

           


Today in general should have been a short day five subjects with four of the five taking about thirty minutes well here it is five o’clock and I still have homework to do.   Today I felt that the hardest thing was history. I had to make notes and write a short sentence about the composition that I have to write tomorrow about the Grand Canal. I haven’t talked about my school school. Mom sends me to school for 2 periods a day (technology and orchestra). They are fun and exciting. On Tuesday of next week we should be ready to start making robots in tech. Yesterday night Me and our foreign exchange student made an Armored  Turtle Ship. It looked very cool with spikes on the top and sails and everything. Today I finally got to the part in Beowulf where he rips off Grindel’s hand.

This is Jaycob and me holding the ship

This is the ship close up.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Review of the last four days

 I haven't been keeping up very well but over the last four days, the toughest thing was writing the history composition. It took me almost 4 hours to do that thing and yesterday I had to write it over again. That took forever. Now the hardest thing that I did today was the science notes. It took about forty-five minutes before I got  it done. The funniest and easiest was playing Math Detective. It was easy but challenging. It had a story along with five or six questions and a sentence that explains the answer. The book I’m reading is Beowulf. I totally recommend this book for somebody that has not read it. I am at the part where Beowulf is getting ready to fight Grindel. My mom is a little bean spiller because she tells me again and again that Beowulf is going to rip off Grindel’s hand.

Thursday, August 18, 2011

Fun and Easy


 Today was fun and easy because I got done at eleven thirty expect for math. Today we did another science experiment where we put water and red cabbage and let them boil. The water turned red. Meanwhile we took baking soda and a balloon and put the baking soda in the balloon. Then we took a 2 liter and put vinegar in. Then we took the red water and put it in the vinegar. After that we put the balloon on the 2 liter lid and tilted the balloon so that the baking soda poured into the vinegar. It bubbled up to the top and the balloon filled up. We liked it so much that we did it twice. We did history where we did an outline of what I’m suppose to do tomorrow(write a page on Greek fire).One last thing we did today was that we read a article on the Penel Colony.

Cabbage water added to vinegar renders this reddish-pink color
Dump the balloon full of baking soda into bottle - Chemical Reaction!
Balloon blows up, mixture turns dark purple...children are so amazed, they do experiment again!


Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Doing Crosswords: not so fun. Doing Science: two thumbs up.


Spending two hours of one paper is tiring and humiliating. Well that how long it took to do a single crossword. Talk about hard. The crossword puzzle was small but included a lot of tricky words. Ego, Vie, and Erin were some of the more exotic words today.


We did science again today to play catch up from yesterday. We learned about Democritus and some of his wise and smart thoughts, but we also learned about some of his wrong thoughts like for instance, he thinks that atoms are indestructible. Atoms are not indestructible because we use split atoms in atomic bombs and nuclear energy. One of  Democritus’s true statements was that atoms are constantly moving all the time. Even though the water isn’t moving, the atoms sure are. We did another science experiment today and this had to do with food coloring moving in different temps. In hot it expands quickly but in cold it takes quite some time in order to finally turn the liquid green or red or some other color that you just put in. It was awesome seeing who the food coloring moved quicker in one than in the other. Today was one of those days that was long, but fun.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The second day of school

Today was like the first but different. The coolest thing that I did today was my science experiment. It explains density. The vegetable oil was on top, then the water and then the syrup. We put in a grape, penny rock and some other stuff.

It was really fun. Nothing was a bummer today . We went to the library too. My subject for history is G7reek fire. It is some interesting stuff. The catapulted on the walls. Then people tried to dowse the fire but the fire got bigger. Today was a good day.

Thumbs up for science!




So, the maple syrup is more dense than water, which is more dense then vegetable oil.  The cork floated on top of the oil.  The rock and the penny sank to the very bottom.  The grape suspended in the middle and the ice cube floated in the oil.  Atoms are crazy things!!

Monday, August 15, 2011

The First Day

The most interesting for me today was vocab. It was filled with fun words like evict and impartial. My favorite word was irrelevant. It was fun to use in a sentence! One struggle I had today was the history. Mom says that there is generally a lot of history the first day. One cool thing I learned was that while cleaning ceiling fans, watch out!  About lunch Mom was cleaning the fan. She misses the chair and fell. She didn't hurt herself but the chair broke. Today was a trek[one of my spelling words] because it took quite a long time to get done.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Excited or Not

This blog is about my homeschool experience. Am I excited about homeschool? Well to tell you the truth I am excited about homeschool but it will have major downers. Like for one I will not see my friends. Another will be more homework. Those don't really matter much not that I hate my friends but I'll see them at other things. Homework is never very hard in the first place. Homeschool will have its ups and downs