Tea and Kate

In homeschool science with Dad I made a little machine (mathematical model) in Microsoft Excel to try to predict/forecast the future deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic. We used an exponential curve to model it. Our equation was deaths = growth rate to the power of days since first time input. The model took a lot of fiddling about to create an accurate representation of the outbreak. It was really fun to make and I learned a lot. I hope you all enjoy it!

COVID-19 Mathematical Forecast

Hope you are all doing well,

Liam

Today Liam was doing his math homework when he popped off his noise cancelling headset and with a look of absolute wonder announced, “I don’t have a headache!”

Well, shucks, we may just have rounded the bend on his concussion recovery. I looked up his fall date–Feb 5th–and since then, until today, he had one long headache. It’s kind of hard to imagine.

We’re delighted he’s feeling better.

One of the silver lining of this concussion has been listening a bit more to audio books. We all loved Trevor Noah’s memoir. Here’s Liam report on the book:

Born a Crime Report

Liam and Reid have been hard at work homeschooling. Because Liam is in a protracted concussion recovery and is not able to use screens for hours at a time, we’ve needed to invent some of our own material. The kids have been reading a ton: currently Percy Jackson, Trevor Noah’s memoir (some would question the appropriateness here, but we sure have laughed a lot), and LeGuin’s Earthsea. The kids have been productive writers as well. Below is Liam’s review of the survivalist novel Brian’s Winter.

Brian’s Winter

Reid recently finished this report on the moon:

Moon newsletter

Life is busy with online teaching and work for adults, as well as homeschooling kids, but we’re having fun. Love to all!

 

 

Liam is taking full advantage of middle school sports. Soccer was short lived, sadly, due to a concussion. But this season Liam has loved nordic skiing (he now has two races under his belt, including one in which his boot broke and he skied on one ski and then finished in his coach’s boots). He has also played on the basketball team here and there when he hasn’t been busy with nordic. Here’s the nordic team:

Reid’s delightful teacher, Mrs. James, runs her classroom as a town, called Jamestown, naturally. The citizens of Jamestown each have a job which comes with a set salary, and occasionally they get the opportunity to spend their savings on provisions (candy, toys, etc). Some citizens–or at least one of them–are arguing for a wage increase.

Yesterday evening we hosted a Kids Climate Action in downtown Orono. Families made signs and got together with drums and rattles and cymbals to parade around the downtown. The weather stayed clear and we had a wonderful time.

On labor day weekend before school started in full swing, we took one last family summer hike, up Pomola peak in Baxter state park. Reid had a fever but he did it nonetheless!

Lunch at the peak.

And Liam played piano on the way out.