I was assigned to compare two calendars for personal finance lessons 8-11. I chose to compare Homeschool Planet and Google calendar.
First, let’s state what each is and what it’s intended use is:
Homeschool Planet is a planning website created for families that homeschool to keep track of their events. It also serves as an electronic checklist so you can check off assignments when you complete them, and automatically calculates grades.
Google calendar is built for many purposes. It does not calculate grades or have check boxes. Google calendar does have the advantage of syncing across all your google applications, including Gmail, Google Meet, Google Teams, Google Classroom etc. The only one of those I use is Gmail, but the calendar feature is not very useful for me.
I’m picking homeschool planet, and this is why: It has all the features of google calendar that I could use, but it also includes features specifically built to be useful for the scenario of a homeschooling family, one of which I am a part. I find that the checklist feature is really convenient and useful, but google calendar doesn’t have that feature. Furthermore, it helps my mom calculate my grades so that she doesn’t have to do it manually. The background image is also more customizable than that of google calendar. Homeschool planet is, quite simply, more tailored to my needs than Google calendar is. I am not saying that google calendar is bad; it’s just not the right fit for me.
Colonial cities were either created around a harbor town or a seat of government. In every city there was a church, where, obviously, the people would go for church services. There was always some form of government building in a city, regardless of whether it was a harbor or not. There was at least one town square, or gathering place. Like most city streets today, the streets were laid out in grids. There was a market, where people would sell their wares. Of course there were houses where the people live. There would also be trade shops, where people with a certain occupation would perform their trade and make their goods. Here are the occupations:
Barber: The barber would cut hair. Oddly, he also would provide leeches if the colonists had a disease. They believed the leech would cure it.
Blacksmith: The blacksmith makes items from metal, like horseshoes and tools. The blacksmith would also knock out your aching tooth if you had one.
Cabinetmaker: The cabinetmaker did not just make cabinets; he was basically the carpenter. He also made the cases for clocks that the clockmaker made.
Clockmaker: The clockmaker builds and repairs clocks. He gets the cases for the clocks from the cabinetmaker
Cobbler: Cobblers make shoes. Shoes in the colonial times were always custom fit.
Cooper: The cooper makes barrels to store food in for long periods of time.
Doctor: The doctor deals with illnesses and health. He is also the pharmacist.
Farmer: The farmer grows cash crops and food for the colony and his family.
Grocer: The grocer sells food.
Hatter: The hatter makes and sells hats.
Miller: The miller mills wheat into flour for the farmer.
Sailor: The sailor sails boats.
Silversmith: The silversmith makes articles out of silver.
Tailor: The tailor makes clothes for the rich.
Tanner: The tanner makes things out of leather
Wigmaker: The wigmaker makes wigs.
The colonial government consisted of the council and house of burgesses. The governor would be appointed by the King of England. The council was a group of people chosen by governor to aid him in decisions. The house of burgesses was chosen by the people in an election. Below is a picture of the Williamsburg colonial government building.
The area circled in red is where the council would meet. The area circled in blue is where the house of burgesses would meet. The yellow is where they would meet together.
The first houses built by the colonists were, naturally, built of wood. There was only one room in the house that everything was done in. A couple of houses had an attic for storage.
The colonial diet consisted of several different types of food. They would eat corn and corn bread. They would also eat squash. Sometimes, they ate fruits with their other meals. Bean porridge was a common meal among the colonies. Vegetables were also common food because it could be grown easily. The men and boys would fish and hunt and bring home the meats for entrees. Bread was also commonly made from the flour that the miller milled for the farmer. As to drinks, cider, milk, beer, and water were the common beverages. Even children would drink beer, and it was not frowned upon at all.
We also had a study of children in the colony. Some of the chores they had to do included cleaning the house, taking care of pets, washing dishes (worst chore ever, especially without the invention of the dishwasher), fetching water, shaking out the mattress, helping their dad with his work, and doing laundry (again, a pain without washing machines).
They also went to school. The first school they went to was called dame school because one of the women of the colony volunteered to teach it. They would learn to read from this woman. After passing dame school they would go on to another school to learn arithmetic, rhetoric, and writing. After that, boys could go on to be apprentices and learn a trade. Girls would generally work with their mother on her tasks until they married.
The other part of my assignment was to list my favorite and least favorite parts of the culture we covered. I am really quite indifferent, but I guess I can pick a favorite and least favorite part. My favorite part was learning about the occupations. I found it interesting to learn what everybody did for their trades. My least favorite part was the portion about children in the colonies. I just found it the least interesting.
One fact you may not know about me is that I have never actually left the state of Indiana. We live in Indianapolis, right smack in the center of the state, also known as the Crossroads of America. Now, here’s the funny thing. Although we have an international airport and four interstates in our city alone, I have never actually crossed the border of the state.
We have relatives that we visit so I can say for sure that that is farthest away I’ve been, generally speaking. But I want to get more specific. Interstate 69 runs really close to Huntington on its way from Indianapolis to Fort Wayne. I am pretty sure (not certain, but pretty sure) that the farthest I’ve been from home was when we took a detour from visiting our relatives to stop at a Dairy Queen one exit farther north on Interstate 69. So that means, theoretically, that that is the farthest away I’ve been from home. That may not be one hundred percent accurate, as we drive around in that area a lot, but it is pretty close.
In conclusion, I find it really interesting that I’ve never left the Hoosier state. And I haven’t even really been to many places inside Indiana, for example, Evansville or Fort Wayne. The farthest I’ve been from home was probably under 100 miles away. I would really like to travel farther, not to see the world or anything like that, but just to see a smidgen more of it.
This was an essay timed for 30 minutes, and I wrote it in 12! The full recording is posted above.
One way that I can learn and practice managing my time better is by avoiding distractions. A really good way to do that is to have a paper handy to write down something I am thinking about so that I don’t forget about it and I can focus on it later if/when I have free time.
Another really good thing I can do is keep a good calendar. Now, my mom has an application that has all of the event we each participate in on a calendar. So I do not really need to set up my own calendar because I have that one, but I need to make sure it is up to date with anything that I have planned.
Good goal-setting is another way for me to manage my time well. (I have found) that having a good goals help me work more efficiently than without them. I need to make sure my goals are reasonable and achievable, otherwise when I attempt them, I will be disappointed. You should also divide your goals into smaller steps so that they seem more achievable than some far-in-advance goal that you feel like you can possibly achieve.
I’m going to talk about my least favorite subject in each school year that I have been doing Ron Paul Curriculum (every year) and talk about why I disliked it. This should hopefully give you some good insight as to which courses you should try to avoid.
I don’t really remember what I did for grades 1 and 2, but I can say for sure that, in the beginning grades, reading was really hard and time consuming. Pages and pages and pages upon pages of worksheets, sight words, vocabulary AHHHHHHH. I don’t think I could ever go back.
In grade 3, reading was definitely my least favorite subject. It was just grade one and two but you have way, way more worksheets than before. It was also really time consuming Again, I don’t think I could go back.
In grade 4, I hated science. I did not like the insect portion, not because I’m afraid of insects, but because I did NOT like the collection parts where I’m supposed to make an insect collection. I received leave from my parents to skip the collection part, but that didn’t change the fact that that was my least favorite subject.
I hated my grade 5 math teacher. You couldn’t read his writing, his videos had audio issues, it was old content, and the problems were easy. I ended up testing out of that year of math and got half of a school year without math.
Luke Mullins was my 6th grade grammar teacher. Mr. Fish hired Mullins to teach half of 6th grade English. Luke Mullins had all the same issues as my 5th grade math teacher. The difference was that I couldn’t test out this time.
In 7th grade I hated science, mostly because of the fitness first aid parts of the course. I’m still doing the 12 week fitness program. In short, in all my past school years, there has been a single subject that stood out as the hardest and/or most frustrating one for each year. Here are my predictions for 8th grade: English will be a little hard but also very enjoyable. Math will be hard and a little frustrating, but not the kind of frustrating that makes me mad at my teacher. Science will have some outrageous projects as usual, and will probably be my least favorite again. History will be middle difficulty and just the same as every year. Nothing to complain about, but nothing to really like either.
Pascal was the inventor of the calculator. He also contributed to science and physics a lot. Pascal was one of the most influential Frenchmen of his time.
Blaise Pascal was born in 1623. When he was a young boy, Pascal’s family moved from the country where they lived before to Paris. There, his father bought bonds. Bonds are basically giving the government a loan that they promise to pay back over time with some interest. That income they lived off of. The government decided not to pay Pascal’s father back all that it owed him, and so Pascal’s father became poor, and not by his own doing. The government at least gave him a job collecting the taxes from the people of France. Being the tax collector meant Pascal’s father had to do lots of math. The stakes were high. A miscalculation could cost Pascal’s Father his life. Pascal wanted to make his father’s job easier and less risky for him, so he decided to invent his calculator to help his father with all the math he had to do every day. Pascal was 19 when he invented his calculator, also referred to as the Pascaline.
Pascal tried to sell it commercially but it failed, as it was too expensive to manufacture.
Pascal also contributed to mathematics. He created Pascal’s triangle, which is a triangle that starts at the top with 1, then the sum of the two numbers above it creates the number below it. Here is the first 5 rows:
1
1 1
1 2 1
1 3 3 1
1 4 6 4 1
Pascal also contributed to lots of other parts of mathematics and physics, but I do not have time to go over that here. Pascal was a very influential man. He invented the first true calculator, and also contributed to other parts of mathematics. I respect him for that.
The London Company was the company that founded Jamestown. Like the British West India company, it was designated to colonize a certain region (in this case America rather than India). The London Company appointed three ships to sail to America and establish a colony. The Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery were chosen for the journey to America.
The settlers sailed to North America near cheesecake bay, and they sail up a river they name The James River. The decide on a site for the new settlement to occupy. They begin building the settlement. The settlement was completed enough to house the settlers. The settlement was constructed well enough that parts of it remain, preserved to this day.
Most of the population of the new colony was made up of fortune seekers, looking for a new fortune in the New World. Most of these men spent time looking for treasure and “seeking their fortune” instead of helping the colony survive. The direct consequence of this was the death of two thirds of the population of the settlement. However, enough of the population survived to let the settlement continue existing.
People from Poland and Germany began arriving to join the settlement. With them came Captain John Smith, who was a much better governor than the previous one. He said whoever didn’t work would not get food to eat. This really motivated the colonists to work to help the colony prosper. John Smith had to leave because of a wound he suffered. The next period of time was a very hard time for the colonists. There was hardly any food to go around and keep the colony alive. After this period when supplies had been delivered, the colony made its first profit on tobacco.
Not long after the first cash crop of tobacco, Jamestown became a self-sustaining city, and the foundation for the larger colony of Virginia.
For making the basics of making the printer work properly, look here
Today I’m going to talk about things I 3d printed that I am proud of, or things that I am in the process of making. Without further ado, let’s jump right into it.
Probably one of the prints I am most proud of designing is the bicycle pump mount. This was a custom model made for my uncle, so that he can take his little handheld bike pump when he rides off road in case his bike tires pop and run out of air, or they were low when he left to go on his trip.
Another of my favorite prints was the Nintendo Switch Joycon Grips. This originally started as a modification to and existing design by Dam-dam on thingiverse, but I have modified it so much to the point where I call it my own. The joycon grip design is still in progress, but right now I have a working prototype. At the moment I am simply smoothing out the edges and making the perfect joycon grip. Here is a photo of the model inside Tinkercad:
The one on the left is the current, working version. On the right is the version that is smoothed out. Notice the older one is visibly clunkier.
The print that has, perhaps, the most practical use in my life, is definitely the tissue box bed mount. I share a bunk bed with my brothers, and I’m on the top bunk. So it is really inconvenient not to be able to grab tissues when I’m in bed. I designed a mount that slides between the mattress and the frame of the bed to hold a box up there so that I can use it. It has made my life so much easier.
I’d like to give an honorable mention to a pencil&bookmark wall mount I made for my mom a while back. It suspends them on our kitchen wall so that when she reads to us at dinner, she has easy access to them.
I really enjoy 3d printing things, so that is why I write about it so much. Maybe next time I’m assigned to write about my favorite hobby, I’ll have even more designs to share!
I actually recorded myself writing this essay! If you want to watch it, it is embedded here:
For my first assignment in this grade, I was asked to write about my summer vacation. Because I did not really have a summer vacation I am going to use the time that was supposed to be my vacation for this assignment. That time was from July 1st 2023 through August 6th 2023.
I had thought that I was nearly done with 7th Grade! One math exam and one essay stood in my way. That weekend I completed those assignments and we began looking over my school assignments for the entirety of my 7th grade year. Assignments were missing left and right. Many essays did not meet the requirements set by Mr. Fish or Daniel Dignan, my teachers for History, English, and Science. As for Math, I had failed two of my six tests, and I didn’t know because I hadn’t checked the answers to all of the problems. The result of this was that I had to retake all of the exams. With just a month to complete many, many missed assignments, all my math tests, a 12 week fitness program assignment, and much else, you may be wondering how I pulled through to begin 8th grade English, and you might also wonder why I’m writing this on August 16, 10 days after I was supposed to start school (as of updating: 16 days). Well, the answer is this: I worked all summer on my school clear up through July 30 (yes I worked on the weekends too, but I didn’t do as much). This whole time I was basically in a grounded state. I could not do activities, talk on the phone, play video games, etc. All I was doing was school and having emotional breakdowns about school. Every couple hours I would have breakdown and be frustrated and angry and sad that I had to spend my summer doing school of all things. In case you haven’t read any of my other essays, summer is my favorite season. Hardly being able to enjoy it is very very very frustrating. Mom decided to make a plan for school for me that makes me work a little into next summer, but divides it into controllable bits for me to work on throughout the year. Then I started Science 8 and Personal Finance on time, (I’m still doing the 12 week fitness program), and I just started English. Only earlier today (As of updating: 6 days ago) I completed my last assignment for English 7, and I’m still behind on Math and History. History I will complete six days from today (As of updating: today), I have no clue when I will be done with math though. In short, my summer was only summer school. We did have on week for summer camp, which I am very lucky to have gotten.
Basically, I was miserable for the majority of the summer. You, the reader, could not possibly fathom how good it feels to finally share this trouble in detail in a typed format. Thank you for reading to the end, it really means a lot to me.
This was the essay that I lengthened to 2 pages for lesson 5
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