Essentials Week 21 (2017-2018)

In Class...

EEL

• Reviewed through an Easter egg hunt
• Placed the sentences found in the eggs on charts on the board that were like charts B, G, and M
• One board was for declarative sentences.  One board was for interrogative sentences.
• We categorized the sentences by structure and pattern.
• New (and last structure)--Compound-Complex
• last piece of our grammar/Chart A puzzle!
• reviewed what it takes to make a compound sentence and what it takes to make a complex sentence
• discussed how we already know the parts to a compound-complex sentence; we just need to put them together
• reviewed visual reminders of sentence structure (houses and a family)
• Verbals
• Only touched on this briefly, because of time
• Infinitives 
• Reviewed Foundations definition
• one of the 5 verb principle parts, so it still maintains it's verb-ness
• acts as an adjective, an adverb, or a noun--so can do any of their jobs in a sentence (i.e. SPIDO PONA noun usages)
• Used myself as an example--I am a woman.  I can be a mom, a teacher, a friend, a tutor, a wife, etc., but I am still a woman.  Verbals are that way.  They may be acting like a noun in a sentence, which means they can take on the noun usages and adjectives, but they are still verbs.  So, they can also take direct objects and adverbs like a verb.
• Diagrammed a compound-complex sentence with infinitives (similar to practice sentence 1 in this week's lesson in the EEL). 

Math

• Played Multiplication Fact Relay Races
• Played Number Neighborhood

IEW

• Students shared 1 paragraph from their FOH papers
• Reviewed what is expected for Faces of History
• 3-5 paragraph paper, written in 3rd person, following Unit 8 guidelines, due next Tuesday, April 3
• Presentation for Faces of History night (April 12) can be as simple the original paper read aloud or as elaborate as a presentation written on notecards or paper and given in the 1st person
• Presentations should be 2-5 minutes 
• Reviewed Introductions and Conclusions
• Introductions have 3 parts
1. attention grabber (handout from a few weeks ago is a good resource)
2. background information (introduce your subject)
3. state your topics/thesis statement
• Conclusions have 3 parts
1. restate topics (repeat/reflect thesis)
2. tell which topic is the most significant and why (Why is this person still remembered?  What can we learn from his/her legacy?)
3. final clincher (It may repeat/reflect the attention grabber, but it does not have to.  It needs to sum up entire paper.  The title of the paper will come from this.)

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

• Review all charts as needed.
• P and Q are the new charts for this week.
• Practice charts B, G, M, and Q with a fun game like we did in class, using the sample sentences and trying to place them in the right places.
• Complete at least 1 ATS per day.  
• This week's practice sentences are set up wrong, in my opinion.  The easiest ones to do are 2, 3, and 5.  1 and 4 include verbals that might be above the heads of 1st year students.
• Optional--Editing exercises and Spelling List in EEL

This website is a great place to get your grammar and diagramming questions answered!

Math

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

IEW

• Complete your Faces of History paper
• Should be 3-5 paragraphs long, including an introduction and conclusion
• Should be written in 3rd person
• Turn in a marked copy with a checklist on Tuesday for feedback and a clean final copy for the end of year published book.
• This project is not meant to be stressful, but fun!  
• It is part of the Unit 8 curriculum, but as with any other unit--modify to fit your and your student's needs!
• Try to get your presentation ready
• This can be as simple as reading the paper directly, or you can cut parts out of the paper or even rework it into a 1st person presentation.  This is entirely up to you!  Just be sure it fits into the 2-5 minute time frame!
• Practice--your child should be comfortable reading/presenting.  Have them practice several times.  They can do this in front of the family, in front of their toys, the dog, whoever will be a captive audience!
• If you are choosing to do a visual, be sure it is ready as well.

Reminders...

• Be sure to read your lessons for next week--Week 22 in EEL Guide and Unit 9 in the TWSS 

• We will begin covering Unit 9 in class this next week.  This is a fun unit on critiques and literary analysis

•  Faces of History--Thursday, April 12, 6:30pm
• I will be sending out a potluck sign up in the next couple of days.
• Be sure to be inviting friends and family!

• We will begin this week with having our students who are "graduating" to Challenge teach us a sentence during our EEL time.  Remember these can be any sentence of your choosing.
• Week 22 (April 3)--Ceci
• Week 23 (April 10)--Lauren
• Week 24 (April 17)--Elora

My Prayer for you this week...

I hope you are starting to see some "harvest" from your hard work during this school year!  Teachers, you have do a superb job with your Essentials students this year!  When we look back at how far they have come, it is nothing short of remarkable!  God has been our help and our strength, and He has seen us through!  The end is in sight!  Keep up the great work through these last few weeks!

Essentials Week 19 (2017-2018)

In Class...

EEL

• A HUGE "Thank you" to Lindsey for leading EEL on Tuesday!  She did an amazing job!  It was so fun to be in her class!  The EEL portion of this post comes directly from her.😄

• We reviewed Complex Structure, Interrogative Purpose, S-Vt-DO-OCN Pattern, Verbs, and Charts O, D, N (with O being a new chart [To Play])-Lastly, we compared Charts D & N to Chart O. Charts D & N are significantly more challenging since they are irregular verbs. Chart O (To Play) follows all of the regular conjugations for a regular verb (-ed ending for past tense, -ing ending for a present participle, and so on). Students worked to put a disassembled Chart O back together.
• A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and at least one subordinate (dependent clause).
• This structure first came to us in Week 13 and can be referenced there & on Chart M.
• The most common clauses in a complex sentence are adjectival and adverbial.
• Adjectival being who/which, and usually beginning with a relative pronoun (which becomes the subject pronoun of that clause) Relative pronouns are on Chart F.
• Adverbial being www.asia.wub beginning with a subordinating conjunction Remember that www.asia.wub are not the only ones – there are more listed on Chart H.
• We reviewed complex structure with the little sheet of sentences at the beginning of class. This could be a handy tool to review the other structures that were also mixed in.
• Interrogative Purpose asks a question. To change the purpose of a sentence to interrogative, remember the acronym CIA:
1. Change the end mark
2. Interrogative pronoun – change the subject to an interrogative pronoun
3. Add a helping verb to begin the sentence
• My sister called the skydiver a lunatic, though he considered himself a normal guy.
• My sister called the skydiver a lunatic, though he considered himself a normal guy?
• Who called the skydiver a lunatic, though he considered himself a normal guy?
• Did my sister call the skydiver a lunatic, though he considered himself a normal guy?* *see note in 'At Home' section
• Tasks 1-6 were completed with the above sample sentence. Thank you for your participation, students!
• S-Vt-DO-OCN Pattern – first introduced to us in Week 16. An object complement is a noun, it follows a DO, and it renames the DO (it will neither be in a prep. phrase, nor in a sentence with an IO). The OCN will rename what the DO has become as a result of the action of the verb.
• The sheet of sentences can also be used to compare the S-Vt-IO-DO pattern to the S- Vt-DO-OCN pattern because students will sometimes want to classify an S-Vt-IO-DO as an S-Vt-DO-OCN (see pg. 297 in EEL). The question confirmation for each word is crucial to distinguish the jobs of each word in a sentence, and it will serve to help students accurately identify the roles or job of each word.
• Verbs – we briefly reviewed verbs by using Chart C to verbally fill out the Quid et Quo for the verbs in our practice sentence: My sister called the skydiver a lunatic, though he considered himself a normal guy.
• Lastly, we compared Charts D & N to Chart O. Charts D & N are significantly more challenging since they are irregular verbs. Chart O (To Play) follows all of the regular conjugations for a regular verb (-ed ending for past tense, -ing ending for a present participle, and so on). Students worked to put a disassembled Chart O back together.

Math

• Played "Multiple Madness" 
• Use the number cards (and ace) from a deck of cards.  Deal out the cards to all players until they are gone.  Decide what multiples the group will work on (i.e. multiples of 2--2, 4,6,8,10,12, etc.).  These can be written down on a piece of paper or whiteboard.  Players lay one card down at a time and add to any previous cards laid down until the total reaches one of the multiples chosen.  The person who lays down the card to reach the multiple will keep all cards laid down (similar to the game of war).  Play ends when only one person is left with cards in their hand or when players choose to call the game.  (again similar to a game of war)

IEW

• Students read their "US Flag" papers in small groups.
• I really enjoyed reading their papers this week!  They were all so creative and descriptive!
• Began Faces of History 
• Practiced making a KWO from one of my source texts.
• Took that KWO and some from other source texts that I had already done to create a fused outline together.
• Assignment for this week:
• Find (if haven't done so already) the resources you will use--these really need to be simple for students to be able to understand them and get the information they need from them.  
• Try to have at least one book and not all source texts from internet articles.
• Should have at least 4 sources (not every source may have information about your child's chosen topic).
• Choose the topics that your child will write about in the body paragraphs.
• Read through the source texts and do the KWOs/Fused Outlines for each topic chosen on your child's Faces of History handout.

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

• Practice Chart O using whatever method you/your student desire
• 2^nd and 3^rd year students could further disassemble Chart O for an even greater challenge.Practice Chart O using whatever method you/your student desire. 
• Review other verb charts from past weeks, including the verb anatomies
• Parse and diagram at least one practice sentence daily. 
• First-tour students can try to complete tasks 1-4, while experienced students should go on to tasks 5 and 6. 
• Sentences 1-4 are pretty normal this week. 
• Do remember that verb phrases will be identified together in the question confirmation, and they will also be diagrammed together. This can come into play often with the interrogative purpose. Changing the purpose to declarative can often help you put the verbs back together if they are separated in the original interrogative sentence. 
• This can be seen when we added a helping verb to the first clause of our practice sentence: Did my sister call the skydiver a lunatic... your verb phrase is did call, and it will be diagrammed together.
• Scale for your student as you see necessary! This includes chart practice, what kinds of sentences you use in your daily practice, and how far you go with the tasks.
• Use he sheet of sentences handed out and the picture of the color-coded chart I mentioned in class. There really are so many ways this work can be reviewed! Try noticing patterns on the verb anatomy charts. How many patterns can your student find?
• 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.

IEW

• Work through as much as you can of Phase 1 of the Faces of History handout.
• Remember, we will have Spring Break after next week's class, so that will give you some extra time to work through these tougher weeks (research, KWO/Fused Outline, and rough drafts).
• Scale as you see fit.
• You can just do 1 or 2 source texts. 
• You can just do 1 or 2 topics (body paragraphs). 
• This project is not meant to be stressful, but fun!  
• It is part of the Unit 8 curriculum, but as with any other unit--modify to fit your and your student's needs!
• Be sure to bring your resources and any KWO/Fused Outlines with you to class this week.

Reminders...

• Be sure to read your lessons for next week--Week 20 in EEL Guide and Unit 8 in the TWSS and the Faces of History handout.

• Our final Pudewa night is next Thursday, March 29.  Location is TBA

•  Faces of History--Thursday, April 12, 6:30pm
• This does give you an extra week to prepare for the presentation, but we will be doing most of our last unit in IEW (unit 9) before this, so don't procrastinate and not be able to do/enjoy the last unit, which is a fun one!

My Prayer for you this week...

May you find strength through Him!