Last week of classes!

Diego couldn't come last week, but he was here this week.

*We mostly worked on math. Quickly, this is what we learned:

**(-)*(-) = +

**2 variables, 2 equations, weill allow you to find the value for two variables. 

**-2-3 = -2+(-3)

*Will update later, good job Jose!

We're back!

It's been a while since we updated the blog. Both Jose and Diego have been very busy lately with homework but now we have some time to update you on Jose's progress. Today we learned about:

*The Spider Fly problem for math!
http://mathworld.wolfram.com/SpiderandFlyProblem.html

It has geometry in the problem and the last step to figure out the rest of the problem is the Pythagorean Theorem!!! (exciting)

*Word of the week: decorum

Square roots and triangles

*We practiced finding the lengths of the sides of right triangles using the Pythagorean theorem which is equal to c^2 = a^2 + b^2 .

*This allowed us to also calculate the square roots of numbers by hand. Diego hadn't done

this is a while either so he had to learn it again as well.

*We also learned the word of the week. It was 'burgeon', which we'll define next week.

*Last week's word of the week was 'ameliorate' which means to make better (Jose remembered this correctly after a week!).

Beginning of 2009 schoolyear at EPATT!

We came back today and we talked about our summer and about some long-term goals for Jose. Specifically:

*Good grades to get into college

*Avoiding getting into trouble

*Community service

*Leadership positions

One reason why these are good goals to have are because Jose wants to follow his sister's footsteps and go to college. These are essential for getting into the college of his choice.

Here are some techniques for being able to do this:

*READ EVERYDAY

*Treat people fairly (nicely if possible)

*Stay active in a positive way (ie. sports, volunteering)

Lastly, here are his grades from the beginning of the year:

English: A

Science: C

Math: B

History: C

We did some math problems and Jose came back and was pretty good at multiplication and division! Diego gave him some equations to solve because he was so good at these }:)  Jose knocked those out too though.

Today, Jose will review the steps that he needs to go through in order to solve equations. Here are the goals for solving the equation:
*Simplify the equation as much as you can (only simplify if doing so will make it easier to manipulate the number).
*Make sure that the variable (for example, x) is by itself on one side of the equation.
*Make sure that the variable remains on the numerator.
*What are different ways to write X? X*1 = X and X/1 = X So.....if you ever have a situation where you are multiplying by a number by a fraction, it might ehlp to write your number as a fraction as well. For example, 5*(1/3) could be rewritten as (5/1)*(1/3) = 5/3!

When Amy comes home from college

*These are the things that Jose will talk to Amy about.

1. How was your first year?
2. How did you like living away from home?
3. How did you like your roomate?
4. Where will you live next year? Who with?
5. How many credits did you take this quarter? How many will you take next  quarter?
6. Have you decided on a major yet? If not, which ones are you considering?
7. How was the food on campus? 
8. What was your favorite class? What was your least favorite class?
9. What was the name of your favorite professor? How smart was he/she?
10. What do I need to do in order to get this 'college education'? Do you think that working hard in school BEFORE going to college was worth it now? Or should I just stop now and consider selling hot dogs at a hot dog stand?

5/6/09: The day after Cinco de Mayo

*Today Jose didn't have any homework. However, Diego had plenty of multiplication problems for him!
*Jose learned how to work with proportions: He took fractions and turned them into decimals.
*Specifically, he found three things:

1. If the numerator is greater than the denominator then the decimal is greater than 1.
2. If the denominator is greater than the numerator, then the decimal is smaller than 1.
3. If the numerator is the same value as the denominator, the number is exactly equal to 1.