05 Magnus School at Home Odyssey

Friday, May 17, 2013

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Neil deGrasse Tyson
Neil deGrasse Tyson is an American astrophysicist and science communicator. He is currently the Frederick P. Rose Director of the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space and a research.
http://www.haydenplanetarium.org/tyson/

Brian Green
American theoretical physicist and string theorist. He has been a professor at Columbia University since 1996. Greene's third book, The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos, published in January 2011, deals in greater depth with multiple universes, or, as they are sometimes referred to collectively, the multiverse.
http://www.briangreene.org/

Saturday, May 4, 2013

The Eleventh year is a BIG one

Magnus (TX) is an amazing boy. he has been of a very delicate constitution. He hated school hated scouts and hated leaving his room. we opted to homeschool him by the end of 2nd grade.

It has been a bumpy road with Erik and Jordan and Lily and Rose and Krys and Jazz.. but lately.. lately he is really shining. when we pulled him, he was nearly 2 years behind in reading, last year we tested him, and he is now 6 years ahead in reading. 4 years ago, he was a reluctant learner, since January, he has taken ownership of his education, and is using youtube and nova now and pbs to teach himself about astrophysics and dark matter and nature.

I am usually pretty frazzled with Jordan / Lily / Rose and he decided that I needed a Nanny Bot to help me out. sweet right? he started building it. first try he made a traditional lego mindstorm robot and it worked. took him a couple of hours to figure it out and make it work. the next day he tore it all apart and started making a humanoid one. he downloaded detailed plans in pdf files and found the youtube videos to teach him robotics. I wish I would have had a guarantee 4 years ago that we would be here now. I would have a lot less grey hair. but I am happy to say that we are now leaving the k12 safety net and going completely rogue. ;) fortunately dad is now okay with it and says it is a great idea.

last year he started scouts again after a year break. he rarely misses a meeting, is on target to finish first class by his 12th birthday and is going at a sedate pace with his merit badges, but overall is doing fine with the camping. last weekend he volunteered for three grueling hours to help with the PTSD Foundation. This summer he is going to go out of state to Arkansas / Missouri for a week long summer camp without his mom.

this week he started swimming lessons again. we tried at 8 and 9 and 10 with a lot of issues. this week day one was a disaster, he thought he was going to die. he lasted 10 minutes in the pool. day two was text book perfect. day three we added his brother in the same lane, disaster and he was removed from the pool after 18 minutes. afterwards his brother owned his part in the problem (huge growth there) and Magnus was able to come up with an alternative plan of 5 minute time out on the deck to regroup if he makes a mistake again. day 4 was a fresh start, no brother and perfect behavior (outside temp was 55'F) and he had perfect behavior on day 5 with brother. so I am just beaming at how much he has accomplished.

Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Supernova Cosmology

Timelines this week: Magnus's homework.

yeah, they did not prepare me to teach him this stuff in college. I stay up until 1 am learning about Supernova Cosmology so I sound like I have a clue in the morning after my second cup of coffee.

Timeline of the Universe
A representation of the evolution of the universe over 13.77 billion years. The far left depicts the earliest moment we can now probe, when a period of "inflation" produced a burst of exponential growth in the universe. (Size is depicted by the vertical extent of the grid in this graphic.) For the next several billion years, the expansion of the universe gradually slowed down as the matter in the universe pulled on itself via gravity. More recently, the expansion has begun to speed up again as the repulsive effects of dark energy have come to dominate the expansion of the universe. The afterglow light seen by WMAP was emitted about 375,000 years after inflation and has traversed the universe largely unimpeded since then. The conditions of earlier times are imprinted on this light; it also forms a back-light for later developments of the universe.

Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Innovators and Revolution

As as entry point, inquiry involves learners:
✦tackling real-world questions, issues and controversies
✦developing questioning, research and communication skills
✦solving problems or creating solutions
✦collaborating within and beyond the classroom
✦developing deep understanding of content knowledge
✦participating in the public creation and improvement of ideas and knowledge http://www.teachinquiry.com/index/Introduction.html

Inquiry is a dynamic process of being open to wonder and puzzlement and coming to know and understand the world. As such, it is a stance that pervades all aspects of life and is essential to the way in which knowledge is created. Inquiry is based on the belief that understanding is constructed in the process of people working and conversing together as they pose and solve the problems, make discoveries and rigorously testing the discoveries that arise in the course of shared activity.
http://galileo.org/

•Creating learning tasks around topics of relevance, value and authenticity
•Fostering collaboration and community with students
•Increasing mastery-oriented feedback loops
•Carefully structuring learning to minimize threats and distractions
http://teachinquiry.com/index/Success.html

What is the purpose of this lesson? Why is this important to learn? In what ways am I challenged to think in this lesson? How will I apply, assess, or communicate what I’ve learned? How will I know how good my work is and how I can improve it? Do I feel respected by other students in this class? Do I feel respected by the teacher in this class?
http://www.tonywagner.com/resources/rigor-on-trial