Week 14 - Challenge A

Well this semester has flown by! I can hardly believe that Thanksgiving is here and Christmas is fast approaching. The older I get, the more I appreciated my mother saying time and time again about how precious time is!

PIZZA FOR LUNCH...PLEASE SEND IN $3. BRING YOUR OWN DRINK!

BRING A SNACK TO SHARE IN THE AFTERNOON...(I WILL BRING IN SOME DRINKS AND PAPER PRODUCTS)

WEAR YOUR FAVORITE PAIR OF PAJAMAS...(I AM GOING TO WHERE MY CHRISTMAS ONES)

I AM PLANNING A GAME/FELLOWSHIP TIME FOR THE AFTERNOON (2-4)...I AM NOT SURE WHERE IN THE CHURCH WE WILL BE...SO I WILL LET YOU KNOW AS SOON AS I DO.

Onto the academic stuff...

 

Math 

Tuesday:  We previewed Lessons 57 thru 60! The students are doing a fantastic job taking notes on the lessons. 

 

For next week:  Follow the guide!

 

 Literature and Composition 

Tuesday:  Several students in the class wanted to develop their own issues that were "loosely" connected with the question. This issues that they presented were thoughtful and insightful, so I said, "Go for it!" We have some really great writers in the class. I love reading their work.

 

In the event you haven't noticed...I am not correcting punctuation, sentence structure, misspellings, etc. Because LTW is new, I want to be sure they understand the process and content. Once they have mastered these items, we can focus more on the other stuff. Please feel free to correct these things at home.

 

For next week:  Basic Persuasive Essay II - Amplification following the outline in the Guide page 83. BE SURE TO INCLUDE THE FOLLOWING...

 

Parallelism (do this with the proofs in the introductory paragraph)

Exordium

Strong verbs

Specific subjects

Amplification

One-Sentence Recapitulation

 

I have encouraged them not to forget the wonderful writing techniques that they learned in IEW. I love reading the different sentence structures, the quality adjectives, the -ly words, and the strong verbs.

 

If you have any questions, please let me know.

 

Latin 

Tuesday:  We previewed Lesson 3 pp.46 - 52; and Exercises 45 - 54.

 

For next week: Read and discuss pp. 46-52. Do Exercises 45 - 54 (odd and even, or however you decide to have them work). Read Grammar to #64. Vocabulary pp. 47 and 51. This is from Weeks 10 and 11.

 

We are quickly catching up with the guide. I have not any students complain about the workload. Most of them were ahead until just recently. As you translate English to Latin, remember to keep appositives with the noun they rename, and the verb at the end of the sentence. The noun endings will tell us how the word is used in the sentence. 

 

Rhetoric 

Tuesday:  We played a basketball review game with Catechism Questions.

 

For next week:  Follow the guide...and be sure to STUDY, STUDY, STUDY the Catechism Questions.

 

Geography 

Tuesday: Again...we worked with identifying countries, capitals, and features for Europe.

 

For next week: STUDY...STUDY...STUDY FOR THE EUROPE DRAWING TEST; AND THE GEOGRAPHY TERMS FOR TEST FROM WEEKS 12 THRU 14.

 

Science

Tuesday:  We learned more about symbiotic relationships, fish, sharks, and different habitats watching "Finding Nemo."  It was wonderful hearing the research on fish. The students do a great job.

 

For next week:  Follow the guide!

 

 

Blessings,

Debbie

 

 

Challenge A - Week 13

Waiting for snow today was a treat with the children! I was looking too! We pulled up the blinds in the room and there was excitement in the air. Can you believe snow flurries in November...even before Thanksgiving.

Truly, we had a great day filled with incredible thoughts and discussions. Keep up the good work...push onward for two more weeks!

Pizza on Week 15 for lunch. $3 per student. I would like a parent to bring in soft drinks in small bottles and a sweet dessert would be nice for the class.

I am considering having a LTW workshop for parents the week after Thanksgiving. I am just not sure if it is needed. Please let me know if this is something you would be interested in. It would be during the mid-morning either at the church or here at my house.

Also, it would be fun to have some activities planned for the class to get together over the break. Will some moms plan something for the children to do...I will help, but can not take the lead. If you have some ideas, throw them out there on the email loop and see what we can get going.

Lastly, the time is fast approaching to pay for the second semester. If you are not sure what you owe, let me know and I will get that number to you. I will need it by January 1, 2014. You can bring it to me before class ends this semester, or mail it to my home address.

Now...on to the day!

Math

Today - Thanks to Mrs. Mahoney for working with the class during the math hour. Lessons 53-56 were discussed.

For the week - Follow the guide!

Literature and Composition

Today - We developed issues from the following question:

     Should At-mun have broken the bands at his wrists and killed the white man who had captured them in order to set the canoe full of his Atmunshi people free?

The students came up with different issues according to their interest and focus. I am loosening the reins a bit, because I think most of them are ready. They should have come home today with an issue to pursue. The room got a lot brighter as we discussed using Lesson 5-Comparison and Lesson 7-Circumstance as a way to add items to their ANI charts. That is why it is listed in the guide with each novel. Although they may have filled it out in their workbooks earlier this semester, LTW wants them to continue to go back to these 2 (of the 5) Common Topics. We will get more into the other 3 next semester. Hopefully, they wrote down some examples today and can show them to you.

For the week - They should finish reading Amos Fortune, Free Man and fill out their ANI charts. The guide states to have 30 items per column. Make this challenge to your students. The more items they have, the richer their papers will be. I, personally, do not have an adaptation to this.

Latin

Today - We played "Hangman" with Latin vocabulary from Lessons 1-3. I did a terrible job counting the letters, and it threw the game off several times. But...most of them were forgiving, and we just kept on going while laughing at my errors! Hee Hee

I encouraged the students to think of English words that sound or look like the Latin words or stems and use those definitions to translate the Latin vocabulary. I think it would be neat to see how they would do in defining English words using their knowledge of the Latin word. (Hint: I may have a fun worksheet for them to do Week 15 using their vocabulary!)

We, then, discussed Appositives, the Expletive "there", and Latin speaking.

For the week- Read Lesson 3 pp. 38-48; Exercises 38-44; Vocab. pp. 42 and 44; Grammar to #64. This is from Weeks 8 and 9.

Rhetoric

Today - We read through our summaries of the chapter in ICJH entitled "More Wonders of Design." With the intricate way we discovered that some insects live and communicate, it really continues to cement the idea of intelligent design. God's plan for each of these small insects should reassure us that He has an incredible plan for each of us. Praises! Ask your student what the word "sluggard" means, and what the Bible says that the "sluggard" should do and why.

Don't Check...once again did not disappoint as we learned that Bible is fact and not fiction!

For the week - Follow the guide! Memorize the catechism questions. Week 15 may lend itself to a fun game of Jeopardy!

Geography

Today - With a map of Europe, I challenged the students to identify all that they could from memory. Once they had exhausted all they knew, they were to look at the list in the guide and/or use their atlases to identify and circle what they did not know. This will help them focus this week on what they need to work on.

For the week - Draw and label...Draw and label...Draw and label...EUROPE! I postponed their test to Week 15. If they would really like to draw for the test next week then they can.

Science

Today - Most of the students presented their research on Reptiles. I was so impressed with their eagerness to share their work. I love that!! I introduced next week's topic of fish by watching "Finding Nemo" and creating paper fish with scrapbook paper. They looked really neat.

For the week - Follow the guide!

It is my desire for each student to rise to his/her level best, never backing down from being all that they can be, taking risks, and learning new things... academically, socially, athletically, or spiritually. This is a wonderful environment for them to do so!

Thank you once again for allowing me the privilege of spending this Tuesday with your children.
Blessings,
Debbie

Week 12 - Challenge A

Another great day in our little corner of the world! A special thank-you to Joe for the delicious cookies he brought in...Yummy Spritz cookies from Germany and Scandinavia! Also, to Rachel for the "Tea and Cookies" from the United Kingdom! Lastly, a chocolate thank you to Seth for the brownies he brought in to celebrate his 13th birthday. Needless to say...we all love to eat! :)

Remember that we go to Airbound next Tuesday. We will go straight to Airbound after class...getting there at about 4:30. The cost is $12/hour, but we have a coupon for a second hour free. Please let me know if your child will or will not be going. I have the coupons for each student. There is a snack bar there too.

On to the really important stuff...

Math
Today:
--We reviewed material from Lessons 49 - 52. The students took notes from each lesson. Taking the notes really encourages them to focus. I love watching them work.

For next week:
--Follow the guide!

Literature and Composition
Today:
--The Magician's Nephew papers were returned. Look for them. Based on these essays, it seems that the students are understanding LTW quite well.
--A list of required elocution elements went home with the students today. It will help you and your student with the essay due next week on Number the Stars. I am not focused as much on spelling and grammar. I am looking for the components required.
--We started working on the editing element of subject from Lesson 4 Elocution.

For next week:
--Complete part or all of Lesson 4 Elocution A "Basic Editing:  Subjects."
--Compose an essay on Number the Stars.
--Read (begin reading) Amos Fortune, Free Man.


Latin
Today:
--Lesson 3 was introduced. We discussed third declension nouns. It was cute to watch them understand what the word "various" meant from their memory work in Foundations.
--They worked on declining nouns in the third declension. They struggled a bit finding and using the stems of the vocabulary words, but in the end...they seem to master the concept.

For next week:
--Follow the guide for Week 7 and Week 8, which is
Read pgs. 35-41
Read Grammar 45-64 (memorize the numbers to do with gender)
Vocab. pgs. 36 and 39
Exercises 28-38 (even and odd problems with even and odd lesson numbered exercises)

Rhetoric
Today:
--The class studied four pictures of animals and charted their similarities and differences. Then, they took on the role of evolutionists with the task of explaining to me how the animals evolved. They worked together, all eleven of them, to try to convince me. In doing so, they realized that there wasn't an explanation.
--The activity lead us into a brief discussion our summaries of Chapter 11 in It Couldn't Just Happen.
--We spent a little time checking the Don't Check Your Brains...They had to help me figure out the answer to the last question.

For next week:
--Follow the guide!

Geography
Today:
--The students studied countries, capitals, and features in small groups. Then they labeled the large class map of Europe.
--I quizzed them on the countries and capitals. Jenny and Zach were on fire with the answers!
--The class took the geography terms quiz.

For next week:
--Draw...Draw...Draw...Europe and Label...Label...Label!! The test for Europe will be on Week 14.

Science
Today:
--The students worked on the Amphibian questions that they created last week.
--Most of the students presented. Some did not, but will next week.
--We watched a brief video on reptiles which is the subject of the week's research.

For next week:
--Follow the guide!

Looking ahead to Week 15. The class time will be spent reviewing this semester's work. The children are interested in a Christmas Party. I am going to check with the church to see if we can use the Youth Room. Maybe we could watch a Christmas Special, eat supper and dessert together, and exchange small gifts (new or used...we can discuss that in the next week or so!) Let me know if you like this idea or would like to do something else. I am open to ideas!

Blessings,
Debbie