Thursday, January 25, 2018

Essentials Week 14 (2017-18)

In Class...


EEL

  • Reviewed (board work) by studying a variety of review questions.
    • Then played "Puffballs" with those questions, but without looking at our charts.
      • Remember, this is an easy review game to replicate at home for anything!  (We use it mostly for Foundations review).  Simply gather some craft puffball/pompoms in different colors (or you could use colored cards, popsicle sticks, etc).  Assign points (some positive, some negative, some 0) to each color.  As students answer questions, they draw out a color and receive the points assigned to that color.  The game is never the same twice!
  • Reviewed some of last week's lesson on Complex Sentences.  We mostly discussed adjectival clauses last week (begin with relative pronouns, IEW's who/which clauses, act like adjectives--modifies nouns/pronouns).  Today, we discussed adverbial clauses more.
    • Adverb clauses begin with a subordinating conjunction.  They are IEW's www.asia.wub clauses.  They act like adverbs, modifying verbs usually.
  • Discussed briefly active and passive verbs.
    • Active verbs are when the subject is doing the action of the verb.
      • "Cooper feeds his dogs."
    • Passive verbs are when the subject is receiving the action of the verb.
      • "The dogs were fed by Cooper."
    • Only Transitive verbs can have a voice (be active or passive).
    • When changing from active voice to passive voice, the Direct Object will become the subject.  The subject will become the direct object.  If there is an indirect object, it will need to find its pronoun again ("to" or "for").
        • "Myra made Lily pancakes." becomes "The pancake were made by Myra for Lily."
      • In an active voice sentence, an Indirect Object is just a prepositional phrase that ran away from its preposition to hang out with the Direct Object and now has to answer to that preposition in the question confirmation (to whom/what? or for whom/what?)
      • In a passive voice, the Direct Object decides he is in charge and does not want to be Direct Object any more.  He wants to be the star--the subject.  Since Indirect Objects can't hang out without Direct Objects,  IO has to go find its preposition again.  
    • Active and Passive voice may be above the heads of 1st year students.  No worries!  Just skip it.  Touch on it briefly with 2nd year students to begin their understanding.  3rd year students should try to completely understand it and even be able to write sentences that switch back and forth.  As they move on to Challenge,  active and passive voice become important in Latin.
  • Always remember to ask questions!  I don't know if you aren't understanding something if you don't speak up!  😊






Math
  • Four in a Row with partners
    • There are several versions of this game.  I've searched, but I cannot find the link to the printable I used.  If you do a quick Google search, though, you should get several to pop up.
  • Card Slam
    • This is another easy one to replicate at home.  All you need is a deck of cards.  Say the operation and number before you turn the card over (i.e. "add 3").  First person to say answer with the turned over card keeps the card.

IEW
  • Read entire papers in small groups.
    • Used cards to identify dress-ups we heard.
  • Reminded of what is expected for papers turned in.
    • 1st--It is NOT required to turn a paper in every week!  You are the teacher, and you decide what your student does each week.  However, I do encourage you to have your student complete at least one paper per unit, at minimum.  
      • My personal recommendation is to try to do a paper each time one is assigned, but adapt it to fit your student (i.e. maybe only do a KWO one week or only take a paper through the rough draft another week or have your student only do one paragraph when 2-3 were assigned)
      • REMEMBER--It is process over product.  Skipping doing the work is not allowing your child to learn from the process.  The final product is not important!
    • If your child does turn in a paper and they/you want feedback, please follow these guidelines:
      • 1 copy marked with dress-ups, etc.
      • checklist signed by teacher (feel free to write me any notes here!)
      • 1 "clean" copy for their end of the year books (Even if you don't want feedback, please turn in any papers to be placed in your child's book.  It really is a wonderful keepsake at the end of the year!)
  • Answered questions regarding Unit 6 and this week's assignment.
    • Remember to put "source name" at top of each KWO
    • Remember Roman Numeral "I" is for the topic.  Should write something such as: "I. Topic--Alexander Graham Bell"  This will turn into the topic sentence, which each paragraph will need.
    • Paragraphs come from the Fused Outline.
    • Don't forget to write the clincher!
  • Sentence Openers
    • Reviewed why these are needed with a paragraph that had all subject openers
    • Reviewed prepositional (#2) openers.
    • Discussed -ly (#3) openers, since I failed to cover them in class last week
    • Learned about -ing (#4) openers
      • Remember: the thing after the comma (the subject) must be the thing doing the inging!
      • Easy way to create these--decide what two actions your subject will be doing and move one to the front with an -ing ending.



At Home...

**Remember--There is no way I can cover everything in our lessons in class.  You will need to read the lessons to see what I didn't cover, so you can cover the entire lesson at home during the week.  😊

**Also, don't forget about the separate blog post I made about what our day at home looks like.

EEL

  • page 222-223 (224-225) in EEL--"At Home" section
  • Review Charts A, E, H, I, L, and M 
  • 2nd and 3rd year students can be studying Advanced Chart DD
  • Work on the vocabulary words and definitions at the beginning of each lesson covered so far.
    • The names and definitions of the parts of speech are especially important!
  • Analytical Task Sheet
    • Try to complete 1 practice sentence each day 
      • Sentences 1, 2, and 3 are basic and easy enough for anyone this week
        • Sentences 4 and 5 are a bit more advanced, but don't have anything we haven't covered.  They just include adjectival phrases modifying the object of a preposition.  Since prepositional phrases are hard enough in and of themselves, these 2 practice sentences are definitely harder.
        • Also, all of this week's sentences are still adjectival subordinate clauses.
      • Don't forget the answers to each of the sentences are in the lesson and laid out step by step.
      • 2nd and 3rd year students can be doing task 5 and even 6 (quid et quo), but 1st years should just be focusing on tasks 1-4
    • Remember the section in Lesson 3 that gives all of the details for the ATS, and remember the steps are laid out for you on each sentence's page.
    • Also, you can create your own sentences by simply changing part of speech for part of speech.
  • Optional--Editing exercises and Spelling List in EEL


Math
  • Practice and work on speed and accuracy of math facts through games and whatever method works for you and your student.
  • Arcademics is a website we enjoy this time of year.  It is normally a paid site for many of the games.  However, for the next couple of weeks, you can get a free trial to participate in their "Arcademics Cup" which is a competition of earning points through playing their multiplication games.  I believe the competition is the 1st and 2nd of February.




IEW

  • Lesson 17 & 18 from the US History Based Writing book
    • Over the next 2 weeks, we will combine our writing into one 2-3 paragraph essay about inventors.  This week you are to choose either Thomas Edison from lesson 17 or Alexander Graham Bell from lesson 18.  Then, do KWOs from each source text about the chosen inventor, create a fused outline, and write a paragraph about that inventor.
    • 1st year students are encouraged to choose 1 this week and another next week.
    • 2nd and 3rd year students should try to do all 3 inventors.
    • Papers can be brought to class for sharing this week, but wait to turn in your clean copy for memory books until the entire essay is completed.
  • Don't forget the brainstorming in each lesson. 
  • Don't forget about vocabulary words!
    • There are flashcards for these in the back of the student US history book
  • Reminders:
    • EZ+1---only require of your student what dress-ups, decorations, and sentence openers he/she can do on their own easily, plus one more as a challenge
    • You cannot help too much! 
      • Model KWO, the writing structure, etc.
      • Many times the KWO is the hardest part for our students.  Help them get through that, and they can possibly write the paragraph on their own.
    • Hands ON structure and style.  Hands OFF content.
    • Process over Product!

Reminders...

  • Be sure to read your lessons for next week--Week 15 in EEL Guide and Lesson 19  in USHBW book. 
  • Our next Pudewa night is scheduled for February 1 at Jennifer Clinehen's home. Please see email sent out concerning this
  •  Faces of History :  Go ahead and be looking for and even reading resources.  That will prepare you for when we actually begin writing.  We will only have around 1 week for research (KWOs and Fused Outlines), so having resources already in place that you know will work will save a lot of time!


My Prayer for you this week...


I pray that you find yourself trusting in our Lord and keeping your mind focused on Him this week, so that He may keep you in perfect peace!

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