Essentials Week 17 (2017-2018)

In Class...

EEL

• Reviewed (board work) by identifying all of the adjectives in the sentence "Old farmer John painted some parts of his barn bright purple, although he was colorblind and thought it was red."
• Some good dialectic discussion came about through this!  
• Remember grammar is not a science.  It is an art! There is not always one correct answer to every single situation.
• This is the sample sentence on page 268/270 in the EEL Guide.
• Review/Fun Activity--Adjectives about our Friends
• I hope the kids enjoyed getting to come up with adjectives to describe their friends as well as reading the adjectives that were written about them!
• Final Sentence Pattern!!---S | Vt | DO \ OCA
• exactly like OCN, except it is an object complement adjective, which means it describes the direct object
• uses the same verbs as for a direct object
• and, as seen in this week's practice sentences, synonyms of those verbs can also be used.
• Remember:  OCN and OCA complete the thought begun with the verb and direct object
• not "God calls us" or "God calls beautiful"
• but "God calls us beautiful."
• Remember sentences with an OCA or OCN will not have an indirect object 
• Always remember to ask questions!  I don't know if you aren't understanding something if you don't speak up!  😊

Math

• Valentine Candy Math
• BoardSlam/Number Knockout with the official competition board
• We did very well!  We only left 9 numbers after working on the board for less than 10 minutes!

IEW

• A few students read one of their topic/clincher combinations.
• Teacher Valentine Activity to Review Dress-ups, Decorations, and Sentence Openers
• I hope you each enjoyed the notes you received.  The ones I read as I walked around were precious!
• Thank you all for being flexible and completing this activity for each other!
• Continued with Unit 7
• Lesson 21--adding an introduction and conclusion to our papers we began last week
• Conclusion should be written first
• Take time to write a KWO before writing paragraph
• KWO should include:  
1. Restate topics
2. Tell which topic was most significant/important and why
3. Final Clincher--repeats/reflects from introduction paragraph
• Page 164 in USHBW book and page 109 in TWSS
• Introduction has the main jobs of capturing the reader's attention and introducing the paper
• Different kinds of attention grabbers (handout) and page 137-138 in SRP
• Write KWO before writing paragraph
• KWO should include:
1. Attention grabber
2. introduce subject (no "this paper is about...")
3. Give background information (if needed)
4. mention the topics (but don't give everything away!)

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 272 (274) in EEL--"At Home" section
• Review Charts L, M, and N, especially, but work towards mastery of all 
• 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 definitely more advanced!
• 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 should be doing tasks 5 and 6 (quid et quo)
• 1st years students who are moving on to challenge should try to do tasks 5 and 6, at least some parts of each sentence.  Remember you can modify Quid et Quo to keep it simple.  (i.e. just do adjectives this week)
• Other 1st year students can just be focusing on tasks 1-4 and mastering those
• 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

Myra saw this picture the other day and thought that we needed to try to "undiagram" this one in class.   I'm not sure the students are up for it, but I think you all can probably figure it out!  😉

Math

• Practice and work on speed and accuracy of math facts through games and whatever method works for you and your student.

IEW

• Lesson 21
• You will add an introduction and conclusion to the 1-3 topic paragraphs you wrote last week on "hopes and dreams"
• 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 18 in EEL Guide and Lesson 23 or 24  in USHBW book. **We will be drawing for teacher prizes next week!

• Our next Pudewa night is scheduled for March 1.  We still don't have a location, if someone would like to volunteer to host.  Our theme is Pizza and Pudewa.

•  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!

• I plan to hand out Faces of History instructions next week.  I won't go over it much, as we won't officially begin on it until week 19.  However, since we will have a week off in between week 18 & 19, I thought some of you might want to get a head start.  I can't believe its already that time!

My Prayer for you this week...

We are finishing up the 3rd quarter of this CC school year!  It is so hard to believe that we have already come so far!  If you are fretting over what you may be behind on or may have skipped over hoping to come back to, stop!  We must not worry or fret, but simply keep our eyes on the goal (what God has called us to--disciple, raise, and homeschool our children).  If we keep our eyes on the goal and the One who set that God for us, the Author and Finisher of our faith, we will never have anything to worry or fret over!  He has it all under control!

God's got this!