What I Learned Today 11/3/2014

Ancient Civilization:

Today I started Minecraft Homeschool class, Castles and Cannons. The main theme for the first two weeks is peasants. I learned a lot of things about them. I learned that peasants were forced to work in exchange to keep their land and had to give everything they got from 50 days out of the year. Most people now at least have to work 80 days a year to get their paycheck, but the common peasant had to work one month less than the average everyday person. A little earlier than 1831, the Pope could take young peasants to a school. Their goal wasn’t to memorize the alphabet or to know arithmetic, but to be legally savvy. In 1831, the peasants had enough knowledge to make their own code; writing that meant to go somewhere or fight someone, etc. Once they had every peasant at one city, the peasants made their revolt. Most of the code was telling them to not loot or kill random people. Instead of anything you would expect, they killed anyone involved with legal affairs, and burned any legal documents they could find. In my Castles & Cannons class today, I watched a video about monks and peasants. I learned about Cruck houses. Those are houses peasants built and lived in. There is a picture of a real Cruck house. I had to build one on the Minecraft Homeschool server to make it historically accurate, including bedding, fire, cooking, hanging herbs, and animals. I also had to relate and plow rows of fields in the team build. I have to be careful with my money so it lasts all week. So it’s kind of like we have real money to spend and have to make a budget. Here are some pictures of what I’ve made so far.

Geography:

I also finished coloring my map of the United States, but I still have to finish labelling the states, capitals, rivers, and lakes, and color and label the mountain ranges. I think I am using triangles for the mountains.

Pre-Algebra:

I started learning about exponents (powers) today. Specifically squares. We use ^ to mean an exponent. Here are the rules about squares:

Order of Operations: We perform the operations in an expression in the following order.

1. Evaluate expressions inside parentheses first.

2. Compute powers.

3. Multiply and divide from left to right.

4. Add and subtract from left to right.

Square of product: let a and b be numbers. Then

(a*b)^2 = a^2*b^2

Square of reciprocal: let a and b be a nonzero number. Then

(1/a)^2 = 1/a^2

Square of quotient: let a and b be numbers if b is nonzero. Then

(a divided by b)^2 = a^2 divided by b^2

To Kill A Mockinbird:

I continued reading TKAM today. I’m still not that into it, but my mom says I will be. I also had my second book club with Haddie & Emma Saturday. Grama Tina read to us and used voices for the characters!

I got to go a Trick or Treating with them Friday night, too! I was Rainbow Dash, Haddie was a scary Red Riding Hood, Emma was a Monster High doll, and Miss Meredyth was a dead doll. We had fun!

I also got to go see a Grandma Hilma & Grandpa Ernie this weekend! I love going up there! That’s me showing Grandpa Ernie how to play a video game on the iPad! I love my great grandparents!¡!¡! 🙂