Learning Projects

As part of our school, each of my kids has to pick a 'project' that they work on for about 6 weeks. The topic is totally up to them. At the end, they each have to do some kind of presentation for an audience. Normally we meet up with some friends, but it didn't work out this time. So instead we opted for social media sharing! 

Aaron learned about metals. He dictated this to me and I transcribed.

The best part was that Seth had given him some glass vials filled with REAL gold, silver, & copper, so he got to display those during his video. 

Elise is really, really wishing she could attend a ballet class right now.

Instead, she's working on her own moves.

Catherine's project was the most involved. Last year she did a sugar survey and invited several families to participate. One of the moms joked that Catherine should do a chocolate survey next. She rejected the idea at first, but eventually it grew on her. 

We spent a lot of time (and money) decided how exactly to set up the survey and purchasing chocolate. She ended up with two surveys--one with different flavored chocolate, another testing the various brands of milk chocolate. 

Displaying her results

We had a lot of fun tasting everything, even if we got sick from all the chocolate eating (should have split it into two nights instead of doing it all at once). Getting the results was fun as well, seeing what other families liked or didn't like. Some things weren't a surprise (no one really liked cacao nibs that much), but some things were (Lindt and Dove scored higher than the German chocolate we bought). It was a lot of work, but she enjoyed it and learned a lot about data analysis. 

This was my favorite Catherine analysis

Seth's project was another Roblox scripting tutorial (this time with more advanced subjects). I'll be honest: it's all Greek to me. My understanding of coding/programming/scripting is basically zero. Which is why I'm SO impressed with his understanding and the awesome Roblox games he's always creating.

Screen shot of the game:

He's usually working on 2-3 games at once, and is constantly adapting and changing them. He rarely publishes a game, but keeps finding new ideas and stumbling onto new ways of doing things. With the way our society is, these skills will be a huge help to him in the future!

We've also been seriously enjoying our Fun Friday not-actually-a-co-op Co-op. It's been just enough social to fill our buckets, plus we get to do cool stuff with someone who isn't always me teaching! Like making an entire cooler full of Oobleck with Miss Mary:

Aaron, with Oobleck covered face amid a gaggle of kids diving for Oobleck:

We're lucky we've been able to keep doing a little bit of fun school with friends during all this craziness. I'm sure the winter will be long and hard, but we're enjoying the lovely weather while we can!