Essentials: Week 13/14
Grammar, Writing, and Math
CLASS RECAP
Dear Teachers!
It was such as joy to be back with you in the classroom wrestling with Grammar concepts, and sharing our learning together in Writing. I missed you! Each of you spur me on to think more deeply, engaged more purposefully, and rejoice at our learning as a team of homeschool mamas running a race-just slightly ahead of our kids. Thank you! What a joy.
EEL (Essentials of the English Language)
This week continues our dialect discussion of a pattern that was introduced in week 13- S-Vt-IO-DO. For those who were able to attend class, we sang the catchy little song, "You will never have an IO without a DO...no, no, no..." This is important to remind students as you walk through this sentence pattern this week. Continue to walk students through the sentences at the end of the lesson. We didn't have time to practice the imperative purpose with this sentence pattern this week, but don't let that stop you from making this a priority at home. Those Task Analysis sheets, at the back of the lesson, keep our students' minds fresh to new concepts that are introduced in class each week. Remember, just follow the script and work through the sentences with your student. Before you know it, you'll be looking at sentences with the Question-Confirmation process in mind. You will come to see the beauty of this program as we continue to work at unpacking the pieces of Chart A each week. If you find yourself confused or lost please ask. We, tutors, are here to support you along the journey.
COMPLEX SENTENCE STRUCTURE
We are currently entering into a realm of Essentials where we begin to see the memory work (charts) REALLY come to life! Continue to be diligent at memorizing those charts. When our students have the grammar of the English language memorized (meaning charts and definitions)...there is something magical that begins to happen when they begin to THINK, UNDERSTAND, and make CONNECTIONS to the components of the English language. Keep working hard at loading the grammar. Your efforts (and unrelenting positive encouragement) will bear much fruit.
This week, along with following the weekly lesson, plan to review the 4-structures. Make sure students are beginning to articulate the difference between the first three structures (Simple, Compound, Complex). As I mentioned in class, I like to use the illustration of a car. You may want to review that with your students if you found it helpful in class. The complex structure can use the same illustration, but it would be a vehicle with a trailer. The car represents the independent clause, and the trailer relates to the subordinate clause, meaning, it depends on the vehicle to drive it. It cannot drive on its own. Hence, the example of the subordinate clause, being dependent on the independent clause. Remember, a subordinate clause does not make sense on its own. It needs the rest of the sentence to make complete sense. Make sure to reiterate the two types of subordinate clauses both use conjunctions:
1) Adjectival clauses-use relative pronouns (primarily who or which)
2) Adverbial clauses-use subordinate conjunctions (www.asia.wub) sing the song if that helps your student keep these conjunctions top-of-mind.
VERB VOICE
We briefly reviewed the differences between voices in verbs. There are two primarily voices of verbs-Active & Passive. These voices are used with both Vi & Vt. Linking verbs do not have a voice, since they are state-of-being verbs.
Review these definitions with your students. Since students learn best with "intensity, duration, and repetition" I tried to maximize on their memory by providing them with a poorly rehearsed opera example-sorry parents! But, here's the point. An ACTIVE VOICE -is when the subject is PERFORMING the action (hence the poor opera example). A PASSIVE VOICE-is when the subject is RECEIVING the action (the audience of the poor opera example). Regardless of what you choose, just help students memorize the terms of these two voices. The examples can be helpful for long term affect. My son has asked me to consider taking singing lessons.
IEW Lessons 17/18
We have moved into another writing technique unit. Unit 6: Summarizing Multiple References. You may recall, in Unit 4: Summarizing a Reference, that we have already introduced the skill of choosing key words from a source text. In Unit: 4 we looked at finding information, in a single source text, that was interesting, relevant, or important. This Unit:6 Summarizing Multiple References builds on that concept. Please see Unit 6: Summarizing Multiple References in your Student Reference Handbook (formerly know as the SRN). There you will find a review of the process we discussed in week 13, and the quick review we had in class on week 14.
OUR GOAL
The goal of these next three lessons (lessons 17,18,19) is to help prepare us for our library research paper, known as Faces of History. We will practice these skills prior to writing our own research paper by writing a three paragraph paper about American Inventors. (See details below.)
THIS WEEK (week 14)
This week we actually have TWO paragraphs to write for the upcoming week by using Lesson 17: Great Inventors: "Thomas Edison" (page 131) AND Lesson 18: Great Inventors: "Alexander Graham Bell" (page 139). Both of these inventors (Edison & Bell) have two source texts where the students will create a fused KWO for each lesson. Each paragraph will also have a Topic Sentence & a Clincher. Remember to add all your dress ups, sentence openers and decorations.
NEXT WEEK (week 15)
We will continue with this writing technique by adding a third paragraph about Great Inventors: "Wright Brothers", Lesson 19.
Please connect with me (or Mrs. Clark) if you have any questions or concerns about this week's assignment.