University of Washington Homeschool Days

This Friday and Saturday, my mom and I went to the University of Washington to take part in the activities put on by the Homeschool Advocacy Group on campus. Overall, it was a pretty great experience, and I'm really glad we went.

This stretch down to the fountain is very pretty. When you're in the main part of the campus, you almost forget that you're in downtown Seattle.

On Friday, we sat in on a couple of classes, and went on a campus tour. The first class we went to (an English Literature class), we went in and sat down in the back, and waited, and waited, and waited. Nobody showed up, including the professor. We were positive we had the right time and the right room, but unfortunately, we didn't get to see the English class. I was a bit disappointed mainly because that was the class I was most looking forward to, but also because it was a small class, while the other ones we saw were quite large.

We spent some time wandering around campus before sitting in on Psych 101. It was in a huge lecture hall, with probably about 400 people in it. We ate some lunch, and then headed back to the homeschool people for a tour of UW.

The Gothic Reading Room (AKA the Harry Potter room), in the Suzzallo library.

In the afternoon, we went to see an Art History class (in the same room as the Psych). It didn't have as many people in it, but it was still really full. It was kind f strange for me, because it felt like something out of a movie. At 2:30, the professor walked in and started lecturing about Rembrandt. She continued to talk continuously about other artists and paintings until 3:20, when the bell rang, and everyone immediately got up and left. It felt like such a stereotypical college lecture. There was no class interaction, no time for questions, just her talking for 50 minutes.


After that, we drove home. Saturday morning we got up early to make it back to UW (which is a little less than two hours away) by 9am.

Mary Gates Hall, where the events on Saturday were.

All the things Saturday were workshops about applying to college, particularly as a homeschooler. The first part was about preparing your transcript, and how to make sure you cover all the classes required to get into college. We then talked some about finding a college that is a good fit for you, and then ate lunch.

The campus is full of beautiful old buildings like this one.

After lunch were the more interesting parts (in my opinion). First, there was a session on writing your personal statement, which I thought was really helpful. They had great tips and ideas to help write a good essay, and some warnings about what not to do. The last part of the day was devoted to how to pay for college. Since my mom is a college counselor, this is a topic she knows quite a bit about, but I found it helpful. The woman leading did a really good job of explaining financial aid in a way that made a lot of sense to me. She also talked about applying for scholarships, which was helpful.

Red Square on Saturday afternoon. On Friday, where were hundreds of people in this space.

Overall, I thought it was a really good thing to go to. Even though the idea of going to a a huge university like the University of Washington is a little scary to me, this definitely made me start thinking more about applying to colleges, and about where I might actually want to go.

A Storm of Swords by George R. R. Martin {Character Analysis)

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Last night, I finished reading A Storm of Swords, the third book in the Song of Ice and Fire series. This won't be a review really, more just a collection of my initial thoughts after finishing the book. There will be spoilers, certainly for the first two books, and probably for this one as well, so be warned. If you're watching the TV series, this goes beyond what has aired so far, so there might be spoilers for that too, though I'll try to avoid them. If you are worried about spoilers, DON'T READ THIS.

My Review
I was really impressed by the character development in this series, but particularly in this book. For example, take Sansa. In the first book, I really didn't like her. I found her irritating, and a little flighty. In the second book, I started to feel sorry for her, but in this book, I really began to respect her. She went through incredible things for someone her age, and made very difficult choices, but stayed strong through it. By the end, I felt so, so sorry for her, but also really liked her. Another example is her sister Arya. I have always liked Arya, but in this book, I began to feel like she's gotten a little detached. By the end, I was almost a little afraid of what she would do. Her circumstances would have made her become that way, and George R. R. Martin created that change in her perfectly. Warning, possible spoilers in the following paragraph.

This book was a little shocking. With a number of major character deaths, a few weddings, and more shocking revelations, it was quite a page turner. There were a number of points where the thing that happened was the one thing that I was absolutely sure could not happen. Here are some of my opinions about characters as of the end of the book. My thoughts of them change all the time, so I think its interesting to record who I do and don't like at the end of each book. Warning: Spoilers may follow.

Arya and the Hound.

Some characters who I like now, but didn't before, or didn't expect to like, are Jaime Lannister (I love his relationship with Brienne), Sansa Stark, Ygritte (in a way, she was really a good thing), and sort of the Hound. I didn't really like him for sure, but my respect for him grew a lot during the last half of the book. Other favorites (but not new favorites), are Tyrion Lannister, Bran Stark, Samwell Tarly, and Jon Snow. Some that I am less sure about, but once liked (and don't really dislike), are Arya Stark (she's gone through a lot, and it's taken a tole), and Daenerys (she scares me. She's gone through unimaginable things, and she's kind of gone crazy.). I straight up don't like Cersei, Melisandre, Tywin Lannister, and Joffrey Baratheon.

The most interesting part of the series to me is the way the characters change, and how my thoughts on them change. I'd love to hear your thoughts on these people too (though please, no spoilers for anything beyond A Storm of Swords).

As usual, I should mention that while I personally love these books and would highly recommend them, they are NOT books intended for young readers. They include quite a bit of sex, swearing, and violence. Keep that in mind when choosing whether to read these books.

Movie Time!

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This year is a big one for teen movies made from books. Divergent came out a few weeks ago, and it was awesome. It was quite close to the book, and while I could nitpick about some of the changes they made, it was overall a really good adaptation. I thought that today I would go over some that are coming out in the next few months, and let you know what I think so far. I am feeling pretty terrible today (I have had this absolutely horrible cough for nearly a week now, and I think I have a fever), and so I decided to take the blogger equivalent of a day watching movies. :)

 I'm only going over movies that already have a trailer.

1. The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.

I really love this book, and so I was naturally nervous about the movie. I am really excited now, though, after seeing the trailer, and the clip (both are below). Seeing Shailene Woodley in Divergent also helped me be a little more confidant in her acting, and I think she'll make a good Hazel. The trailer alone make me tear up a bit the first time I saw it, so I expect to cry when I see the movie.

Starring: Shailene Woodley (as Hazel), Ansel Elgort (as Gus), and Nat Wolff (as Isaac)

2. The Giver by Lois Lowry

This one disappoints me so much. I vividly remember reading this book for the first time when I was about ten years old. It was my first true dystopian book, and it fascinated me. I loved the characters, I loved the story, and it made me love a new type of novel. I'll let you watch the trailer for yourself, but I find it to be incredibly disappointing. I hate that they changed the age of the kids, I am unhappy that it didn't start out in black and white (I mean really, this book is so visual, it was made for the big screen. But they're not doing it justice). I am also really confused by what's going on at the end of the trailer. I've read the book. I should not be confused. I think the book is important enough to me that I have to see the movie, but I'm not looking forward to it.

Starring: Brenton Thwaites (as Jonah), Odeya Rush (as Fiona), Jeff Bridges (as the Giver), and Meryl Streep (as the Chief Elder).

3. The Maze Runner by James Dashner

This is one I have no particular strong feelings about. I liked the book, and the trailer looks relatively true to the book, but it's nothing special. I do hope it's good, because it seems like one that could be done badly, but we'll see. I plan to go see it, unless future trailers look really bad.

Starring: Dylan O'Brien (as Thomas), Kaya Scodelario (as Teresa), and Thomas Brodie-Sangster (as Newt).

4. If I Stay by Gayle Forman

This one I am excited about. The trailer looks good, it appears to be pretty true to the book, and it made me about as sad as it should have (though not like the TFiOS trailer did). I really liked this book, and the movie looks like it will be a good one. It uses some iteresting storytelling techniques, and I am interested to see how they translate into film. I do hope that they don't change too much.

Starring: Chloe Grace Mortez (as Mia), Jamie Blackley (as Adam), and Mireille Enos (as Mia's mom).

Memories of the Early Years

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When I think about my elementary years, many wonderful memories come up.

I remember getting caterpillars, and watching them hatch into beautiful butterflies.

I remember when my sister was in Kindergarten, and she did Five In A Row, and read the same picture book every day for a week, with a different activity each day. I didn't even technically do this, being in 4th grade at the time, but in reality I did participate.

I remember riding the train to Seattle to see the Dead Sea Scrolls at the Pacific Science Center.

I remember studying all the continents of the world one summer, and making a meal from that place at the end of the week.

I remember watching Bill Nye videos.

I remember reading picture books on every science topic. Books by Jim Arnosky, and Gail Gibbons, and so many others.

More than anything, I remember reading Story of the World.

I remember the coloring pages that became a staple part of our day, and how sad I was when they came out with the new edition of the Activity Guide, and they had redone all the coloring pages.

I remember mummifying a chicken.

I remember reading so many hundreds of picture books. I still recognize most of them if I see them somewhere.

I remember some sections of SOTW nearly verbatim. This includes the intro to Book 1, the first chapter of Book 3, several other sections near the end of Book 1, and a few parts of Book 2. I heard book 4 less than any of the others, so my memories aren't quite as good.

I remember reading so many great books like the Bronze Bow, Caddie Woodlawn, Black Ships Before Troy, Number the Stars, the Witch of Blackbird Pond, and Johnny Tremain.

Most of all, I remember having fun. All these memories are good ones. Sometimes now, I get into the mindset that progress must be painful. I start thinking that fun and school can't mix. Then I remember the grammar stage, and how much fun I had, and how much I learned. Learning can absolutely be fun.

Update: Furniture Moving, Test Taking, and Doctor Appointments

Last Friday, I went to the Allergy and Asthma doctor, to see, basically, if I had allergies, or asthma. After talking for a while, and doing a number of lung capacity tests (they take some practice!), the doctor decided to get me a prescription for albuterol (an asthma inhaler). I'll be using it as needed for the next few weeks, to see if it works. I have a really bad cough right now, which I think it part of a long running cold going around our community, which is making my breathing worse, and may have skewed the results from. Interestingly, using the inhaler has actually helped me cough a little less.

It's quite large, much bigger than I expected.

Next week, I'm going back the the doctor to do a skin allergy test (they dip these toothpick like things in the allergens, and then poke them onto your skin. If you're allergic to it, you'll get a little hive there.), and some asthma breathing tests. I'll also talk more to the doctor about how the albuterol has or hasn't helped. 

On Saturday morning, I went to the community college to take the English placement test (which all Running Start students have to take to qualify for the program). I've done a lot of standardized testing (homeschoolers in WA have to take a test every year), but I'd never done any on the computer before, so it was a bit of a new experience. I must say, I like it much better than filling in bubbles. I am quite happy with my test results; I got into the program (which I was sure I was going to do), and I tested into English 101.

Today, I still have this terrible cough, so I probably won't be doing a lot, but I am planning on doing some organizing in my room so that I can move some furniture around. I am planning on moving my desk out of my room and into the family room/school room, but I have a bit of work to do before I can really do that.

Homeschool Friday: April 7-11 2014

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I know it's been a while, but I'm finally getting back into homeschooling posts. I have also decided to change the format for these a little. Instead of having them be just about the homework I did, they will be more of a review of my week in general, with the focus on the school work and homeschool activities I did.

This week was pretty average in many respects. I volunteered at the library, went to dance class, met up with a bunch of homeschoolers at the beach for what ended up being the first truly nice Park Day of the year, weather wise. My sister and I also went out to frozen yogurt with a friend. This afternoon, I'm going to the Allergy and Asthma doctor to hopefully get some answers about some health issues I've been having.

School wise, this week as a little hit and miss. I mainly worked on three subjects: Math, History, and Latin. In math, I am doing a chapter on multivariable equations. In Latin, I am just working through it as quickly as possible. In history, I started reading a book called 1066: A Year of Conquest by David Howarth. I also spent some time this week realizing what I need to accomplish each week to finish the school year in June.


At the moment, I'm really focusing on Math, Latin, and History, with the goal of finishing them all by the last week of June. While there are many other subjects that I need to do, and should really be doing right now, those three are the ones I'm trying to put my focus into.

I've been feeling pretty icky the past few days as well with this super nasty cough, so that might be affecting my work slightly. Tomorrow, I am going to the community college to take the English placement test. To start taking free classes there in the fall, I need to test into English 100, which I am pretty sure I will.

That's it for this week. I'll post an update tomorrow after I go to the allergy doctor and take the placement test. I also have a book review mostly written which should come out Monday or Tuesday.

Tasting the Sky by Ibitsam Barakat

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Today, I'm reviewing Tasting the Sky by Ibtisam Barakat. I read it for our World Lit group as our February book. We had our discussion a few weeks ago, and I really wish someone recorded it. It would be way more interesting to read here then whatever I'll end up writing! We had the weirdest, most random discussion (many tangents were gone on, including cat collars at one point near the end), but over two hours, a lot of really good points came up. It got a lot "deeper" than most of our book discussions in that we spent probably half an hour talking about memory, emotions, the effect of major world events on our lives, and more.

Summary from Amazon.com

Winner, Arab American National Museum Book Award for Children's/YA Literature, among other awards and honors.

“When a war ends it does not go away,” my mother says.“It hides inside us . . . Just forget!”
            But I do not want to do what Mother says . . . I want to remember.

In this groundbreaking memoir set in Ramallah during the aftermath of the 1967 Six-Day War, Ibtisam Barakat captures what it is like to be a child whose world is shattered by war. With candor and courage, she stitches together memories of her childhood: fear and confusion as bombs explode near her home and she is separated from her family; the harshness of
life as a Palestinian refugee; her unexpected joy when she discovers Alef, the first letter of the Arabic alphabet. This is the beginning of her passionate connection to words, and as language becomes her refuge, allowing her to piece together the fragments of her world, it becomes her true home.

Transcending the particulars of politics, this illuminating and timely book provides a telling glimpse into a little-known culture that has become an increasingly important part of the puzzle of world peace.

My Review

Considering that this is a memoir, it doesn't really seem fair to judge the characters and plot of this book in the same way I normally would. The characters in this book are real people, and so it doesn't feel fair to judge their actions and personalities. What I can say is that I was impressed with the way she wrote about them. She managed to portray her family in the light that she saw them, as a young child, but also in a way that allowed the reader to see all the motivations and emotions that she was too young to understand.

Again, I can't judge the plot, as it is her life. I can talk about what parts she chose to focus on, though. I expected the focus to be on the war and the soldiers, and while it sort of was, it was much more on her. It was about her personal struggles, and the struggles she saw her parents and siblings going through. It became a very personal book, which by the end was focusing on her relationship with the written word, and the way those outside influences, like the soldiers, affected her as a person.

The book was well written to a point. It is a children's book, and so the reading level is lower than most books I read now. The vocabulary was relatively simple, and so were the ideas presented, but I was at times impressed by how she managed to impart a complex idea or feeling in a simple way.


Who Should Read This Book? 
I would recommend this book to young teens and preteens looking for a window into life in the middle east. It's also a great discussion book for a book club, and there are many events and ideas that are jumping off points for casual discussion as well.

Summer Plans

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It's getting to the time of year where it's hard not to start thinking about summer. There is still plenty of the school year to go (and even more work than I have time for), but with the weather getting nicer, summer feels almost within reach.

For the most part, I don't like to make to many plans for the summer, and instead just let things happen as they will, but there are a few things I intend to do this year. First of all, I'm most likely going to be taking Driver's Ed with a friend, assuming the scheduling works out. I definitely plan on doing the library's Teen Summer Reading Program, like I did last summer.

If my dance studio offers summer classes for Irish (they did last year), I plan on doing those. I'm sure I'll keep going with the editing jobs I've been working on for the past year, and there is a possibility that I might be doing a little Latin tutoring to a middle school student in our homeschool group. I'm also planning on taking a camping trip to Oregon in July with several families we know.

My main goal for the summer is to avoid doing school, but whether or not that comes to pass really is going to be decided by how hard I work now. My goal is to finish as much as possible by the end of June, though I may end up with some things to finish up in July.

So, overall, I don't have a lot of summer plans, but if this summer is like every other, it will end up being plenty busy. I just don't know yet with what. :)

What are your summer plans?

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Math: A Journey

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In the past, I've said a few times that I've tried a lot of math programs, but I've never elaborated on it until now. Here is a description of my experience with each of those programs.

When I was in Kindergarden and 1st grade, I was in public school, and in our school district, they use Saxon Math. When I started homeschooling in 2nd grade, we continued to use Saxon through 3rd grade.

I never enjoyed Saxon, and I disliked it more and it went along. To be honest, at this point, I can hardly tell you what I didn't like, or what the program was like. My main memory of that time was that each lesson had many, many problems which took a very long time to do.

At the beginning of 4th grade, it was obvious that Saxon was not the way to go, and so I switched to doing Singapore. I started in the 3B book, and went from there. The difference was incredible. Singapore has short lessons, and a workbook that you do the problems in, and it felt so different to me at that point. That isn't to say that I loved doing math, but it was a lot better.

There were some struggles, though. Singapore has a very visual method of doing problems, and they teach a very unique problem solving style that was pretty new to me. It was hard to get ahold of, and I never really understood it fully.

During 6th grade, we were running out of Singapore books (at 7th grade, they change to a different series, which is by the same publisher, but it pretty different), and started looking for other options. We went with Life of Fred. I actually never did Singapore 6B, but instead started the Life of Fred Fractions book, and the Decimals and Percents book. I did them both that year, and then, because I was only in 7th grade, did their Prealgebra with Economics book. It was a repeat of the previous LoF books I had done, but I was still a bit young to start Algebra. Life of Fred is very hard to explain, but it's a narrative bases math book that is based in providing real life problems and their solutions.

 Part way through 7th grade, I did start Beginning Algebra, and then I started Advanced Algebra in 9th grade. I struggled through both books, and we supplemented both books with Lial's. Lial's, unlike Fred, is a traditional college math textbook, and it helped some, but I still felt pretty lost.

 During the summer between 9th and 10th grades, we got Teaching Textbooks. It's a computer based program. You watch the screen (which looks like a notepad) and listen to the guy talk through each lesson. The notepad is like a whiteboard he's using, but it's also interactive at times. You then do all the problems in the computer program, and have you grade immediately logged.

 For me, it's been really good. As much as I liked Life of Fred, I often felt like it expected me to make intuitive leaps that I wasn't ready for. There was also little review of past topics. I'm also a very auditory learner (at least according to the tests I've taken), and while I certainly don't want to use that as an excuse for not doing well, I think it's good to be aware of. Listening to a lecture of the same material covered in the textbook seems to be much more effective for me.

One thing I learned through this experience is that every program has their own way of doing things, and when you jump in at some point, those methods might be confusing. The key seems to be finding the way of doing things that makes sense for you. I think all of these programs are good ones, but some worked better for me than others. They might not be the same ones that work well for my sister, or my friend, or for anyone else.

I didn't go into much detail about any of these programs, because I just wanted to give a brief overview here, but if you have a specific question about one of them, feel free to leave it in the comments, and I'll answer it for you. If you have trouble leaving a comment, or don't want your comment to be public, you can also email me at readingwritinghighschool@gmail.com