Learning This Year

This has been a fun year learning about lots of different things.

Hobbies

I got even more into origami this year and learned some very complicated 3D folding with big paper. I also did a lot of baking and made all the pies and pastries for Thanksgiving from scratch which everyone loved. Just recently I learned how to make homemade butter and ice cream. I also can make hair gel out of Chia seeds which is pretty cool. 

Reading & History

I did mostly medieval history this year which is still my favorite and I read the Ranger's Apprentice series all the way through which was a lot of fun. Lately I am reading Narnia. I had read some of these earlier, but never finished the series so I am excited to read them all the way through. 

As a family we did a whole bunch of reading and listening to classics together this year almost 40 total.

- Wizard of Oz

- The Time Machine

- Animal Farm

- Black Beauty

- Shakespeare for kids

- A dog of Flanders

- Understood Betsy

- Beatrice Potter Books

- Cheaper by the Dozen

- Little Women

- Little Men

- The Man who Counted

- The Declaration of Independence

- What would The Founding Fathers Think

- The Alchemist

- Pinocchio

- Mr. Popper's Penguins

- My Friend Flicka

- King Arther and His Knights

- The Moffits

- The Little Prince

- Chitti Chitti Bang Bang

- Peter Pan

- Mathematicians are People Too

- Five Children and It

- The Jungle Book

- Riki Tiki Tavi

- Just So Stories

- The Prince and the Pauper

- The Scarlet Pimpernell

Math

This year I finished 7th grade math on Khan Academy and am starting through 8th grade and some pre-algebra. I did a lot of math with money this year too as I had to earn money for my soccer cleats and gear.

Music

I discovered the song Lady of Shallot this year which comes from a poem by Tennyson. I learned to play the song on the piano and am working at memorizing the whole poem this summer. I also learned Solfeggieto which is a fast song by Bach.

Science

This year I spent a lot of time in nature observing animals and plants. I also did some fun science experiments like a candle out of an orange and I learned about chain reactions through dominoes and weaving popsicle stick bombs that go all around.

Sports

I still love playing soccer the most and have made a whole practice skill goals for the summer to get better. This year I played with a Club team where most of the kids were 1 or 2 years older than me. I also got selected for a Regional National Team which will travel to New Jersey later this month for a tournament. I'm working a lot on my touch, but also starting to try and get faster with and without the ball.

Achievements

I did some typing practice this year and my record is 75 WPM which is even faster than my dad. 

I beat my old soccer juggling record this year and got 554 juggles without dropping it. I was getting a little tired by the end.

I also did a lot of photography with my mom this year and I took one photo that I entered into a gallery show and it sold which I was really excited about. 

Science Experiment

So I think Science Experiments are fun. I have been watching a few of the them. One of my favorites is this. So what you need is

1 A straw with the wrapper still on.

2 Water.

So what you do first is take your straw and rip the two ends of the wrapper off. Then squeeze the two sides into the middle until they are very crinkly and can move no more. then slide the wrapper off one side of the straw but be careful to not let it get undone. Then set it on the table and get a bowl of water. Take a little in your hand, then let it drip onto the wrapper, TA-DA! Isn't that awesome it looks like it is growing, almost like a worm. And if you put a lot together they look like a lot of worms moving together.

Soccer Drills this Summer

So my soccer season is about to finish so I didn't only want to laze around in the summer and only go to the beach and sit out in the sun, I wanted to be practicing soccer. So me and my dad thought about it and we came up with some cool drills, some of which included someone passing to you and throwing to you.

But the problem with this is that there wasn't always someone to come play with me so we thought about it and then saw that someone had made a passing board.

You can find that at Soccerhop.com. It helps me get volleys, scissors kicks, one touch and two touch passing. I can also use them for shooting accuracy by putting them at the sides of the goal. Some other things I have been working on are chipping, first touch, free kicks and corner kicks. The passing board helps with first touch but not so much on the free kicks and corner kicks. I also do tricks.