What I Learned Today 10/27/14

History/Ancient Civilization:

I am excited because I am enrolled in the Minecraft Homeschool Castles and Cannons class, which starts next week, but this week is orientation week where I learn out how the class works. This is an Ancient Civilization class, so it is part of history. Here is what I’m going to learn (I copied their description):

Join us on an adventure through the Middle Ages of Europe! Students will be given weekly study assignments that may include a YouTube Video, website to read, and/or images to review. They will be expected to develop a basic understanding of all three periods of the Middle Ages from both the peasant and royal class. In-game, teams will work together to build their own peasant community, noble estate, tournament grounds (PVP), and more. Use of Redstone will be taught each week as well in our Redstone Laboratory.

Many structures will be studied as we work to fully understand Medieval culture. Here is an overview of the topics by week:

Week 1 – The Life of a Peasant & Your Peasant House

Week 2 – The Life of a Peasant & Your Peasant Community

Week 3 – The King & Your Castle

Week 4 – Knights & Tournaments (PVP)

Week 5 – War Machines

Week 6 – The Big Farewell Party – No Curriculum

I’m excited to build my houses and castles and learn about Ancient Civilization using Minecraft!

Pre-Algebra:

Today I learned about reciprocals. They look like fractions, and they are, but for right now reciprocals are a new kind of number that “magically” multiplies with another number to give a product of 1. Here are the rules I learned:

We call 0 the identity for addition. 1 is the identity for multiplication

Def: for any x, the reciprocal of x, written as 1/x, is the number such that

1/x*x=1

This number is also called the multiplicative inverse of x, and we can say 1/x as “1 over x.”

WARNING!! The reciprocal of 0 is undefined!

Concept: Reciprocal strategy: to show that two numbers are reciprocals of each other, multiply them and check if their product is 1.

Important: Reciprocal of reciprocal: let x be a nonzero number. Then 1/x is nonzero and its reciprocal is x.

Important: Reciprocal of product: let x and y be nonzero numbers then xy is nonzero and its reciprocal is 1/x * 1/y. that is,

1/x*1/y=1/xy

Important: Reciprocal of negation: let x be a nonzero number. Then

1/-x=-1/x

Every time I do a new section of my book, I have to do write down all the definitions, important parts, concepts, and warnings first. Then I read the section and try the purple problems. I try to get them right. It shows me how to solve each of the purple problems the way I’m supposed to so I can see what I did wrong if I don’t get the answer right. Then I do the exercises at the end of the section for my mom to check and she goes over the ones I got wrong and tells me how to do it right. Then I have to do that section on Alcumus,the online math program. I have to answer questions right until the bar turns blue. That means I’ve mastered it. If I get them wrong, the bar shrinks, which is bad because then I have to answer even more questions. When I get them right, I earn XP like in a game and get awards and sometimes side quests. Finally I have homework assigned online. I get three chances to get the answer right but lose some points each time, so I do them first in my math notebook and have my mom check it first. On Fridays, I have a class online that gets me started on the next section. I can ask the teacher questions if I need to.

Halloween:

A lot of people asked who Rainbow Dash is when I said that’s my costume for Halloween. Rainbow Dash is a Pegasus from My Little Pony. MLP isn’t just for girls!!! There are tons of Bronies (boys who like MLP) because the stories are so good. Even grown up men like MLP. I don’t worry about people making fun of me because I’m happy dressing up as what I want, and I like being different. I just ignore those people. My mom says people who make fun of other people are actually people who don’t like themselves and want to make other people feel bad so I actually feel bad for them because that’s sad. I’m going trick or treating with my friend Haddie and her little sister Emma. Haddie is going to be a scary Red Riding Hood. Here is a picture of me in my costume! My favorite part is the hoodie gat because it comes down long and has a place to put your hands like mittens. I have been wearing every day!!! I’m going to keep my costume for Brinycon and add the Shadow Bolt costume on top for when a Rainbow Dash was in the Shadow Bolts. I just need something black and purple with yellow lightning over it and goggles. And probably black boots.

Big History Project:

I finished Chapter 3 of the Big History Project.

In The Big History Project, I learned about life. I studied the earliest lifeforms, the origin of species, extinction, about DNA, and the Tree of Life. I didn’t learn just about living things alive now but things millions of years ago. I learned that just the tiniest organism could be something to create such a rise in complexity. The microorganisms, before they would reproduce, they would have their spiral DNA split in half. Therefore, the DNA would grow back the DNA on both sides. Creating two strands of DNA then, those strands of DNA could become 4 strands, etc. Then, once the organism figured out a more efficient and better way to pass on genes, they figured out mating. Like mutations with babies, every so often they would make a baby with a good or bad gene. That gene could either pass on to other organisms or create a new organism or millions of years later, the first animal. Any gene that was bad, using natural selection, the organism would die off before mating. Therefore creating new complexity. Remember, whenever you eat any crops or animal, you are eating your own ancestor. Some terms I learned were

Eukaryota: all the plants, animals, fungi, and some single-celled organisms

Bacteria: single-celled organisms functioning without a membrane-enclosed cell nucleus

Archaea: single-celled organisms often living in extreme environmental conditions

Cub Scouts/Naturalist:

I earned my Naturalist activity badge Sunday. I went to the Latta Nature Preserve and learned about the different kinds of wildlife and plants. I got to see a green snake (oropheofrys aestivus). They often live in a wet area or in water. They are great climbers and swimmers. After they are in water, their skin turns blue.

I found seven creatures at the nature preserve and had to tell where and what it was doing. I found a frog in a creek swimming, a chickadee in a tree chirping, a centipede on a trail burrowing, a worm on a log hiding, a beetle on a log getting touched by someone, a snail on a log leaving a slimy track, and a slug on a log resting. I saw several wildflowers including sunflowers and aster. I also tracked paw prints and found three that I got to make a mold of! I found a grey squirrel paw print, which I’m giving to Grandma Tina, a cottontail rabbit paw print, which I’m giving Grandma Hilma because Sage lives the Peter Rabbit books and reads them to me, and I found a red fox paw print that I’m keeping for our home so I gave it to my mom. You pour this white goop into the paw print and let it sit awhile, then it comes up perfect! We got to use stamps to mark what each one was. I get to go back to Latta again because I can earn tons of badges there!