Preston wrote a poem this week for his language arts course. He is learning so much about the elements of poetry and reading many great poems from poets throughout time. He complains a little bit when he has an assignment that asks him to write a poem, but he always ends up doing such a great job. His writing is inspiring.
MARISSA
Marissa read "The Imaginary Invalid" by Moliere for her Classical Acting class this week. It is a French Farce. She really enjoyed the play, which was a nice change from reading a tragedy a couple weeks ago. She also learned about method acting and took notes on her final scene, which she will work on and perform at the end of the year. She took notes on what emotions her character was feeling during the monologue. She chose a scene from "As You Like It" to be her final scene and is working on it as she learns different elements of acting this year.
CALEB
Caleb learned about the Navajo Code talkers for his Ninja Scholars class. He was so excited to make his own secret code to take to class for his peers to decipher. What an interesting topic from history!
Preston learned about filters in his PhotoShop class. He had to use the same picture with multiple different filters for his assignment. He chose a picture of Matthew LeBlanc for the assignment. He really liked the way it turned out and said his favorite filter of this picture is glowing edges.
MARISSA
Marissa read Antigone for her Classical Acting class this week. She really enjoyed it even though it was a tragedy. She learned so much in Shakespeare the past two years that now it is much easier to read, watch and listen to plays from many centuries ago. Antigone is a Roman tragedy, but seemed very similar to Shakespeare to her.
CALEB
Caleb learned about making tiny robots in his specials class at DaVinci. The body of his robot was made from the head of a toothbrush and he taped a battery with wires on top and hot glued the motor together. He named his robot "The Lightning Tornado."
Preston had his belt test for his second degree black belt. He has been working on this for two years...and he did it. The test was all day long and he had to remember EVERYTHING he has learned through all the levels, plus the new katas and weapons. They started with a 5 mile run, pushups, mountain climbers, sit-ups, etc. Then they started the test. They push them when they are completely worn out to see if they can perform even when they are exhausted. Preston was AMAZING!! There were only two of them to test for their 2nd degree. It was so fun to watch him achieve something so difficult!
MARISSA
Marissa finished reading "Girl of the Limberlost" for her Georgics class and participated in the book discussion. She LOVED the book so much and was sad when it was over. She loved all the nature themes throughout the book as well as the difficult relationship between Elnora and her mother. But her favorite part was Elnora's grit and determination mixed with kindness and compassion.
CALEB
Caleb read "A Long Way from Chicago" for his Ninja Scholars class. He really enjoyed the book and was excited to participate in the book discussion. Caleb is so busy with lots of different classes this year, but he is thriving and learning so much!
Preston completed a really cool project in PhotoShop this week for his Digital Media Arts class. He had to turn a black and white photo into a color photo. It was so much work and took him quite a bit of time, but he really enjoyed the project! He learned so much about PhotoShop that he would not have learned without this class.
MARISSA
Marissa LOVES art! She can often be found sketching or painting when she has some time to spare. She works on language arts, math, piano and reading, and then finishes any assignments she has for any of her specific classes. After that, she often turns to arts and crafts for extra learning. Here are a few of her most recent paint projects.
CALEB
Caleb learned a little bit about the science of cooking for the science portion of his Ninja Scholars class this week. He learned that vegetables turn out better if they are cut and salted first to allow them to sweat and release some of the excess water first. He did two separate sautee dishes to experiment and sure enough, the squash with salt on it turned out less mushy and soggy.
The only thing we realized he didn't account for was using a different pan for each dish since we cooked them at the same time. So that may have been a contributing factor. We still think the experiment was pretty conclusive.
