Words of Encouragement
“But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?” and then He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
First example of interrogation! Did God already know these answers?
EEL - We played a quick puzzle game with Chart A and went over Chart E. The puzzle is one way that you can review charts at home!
The kids have 2 more weeks to turn charts in for our Chart Challenge this semester. Written charts and verbal charts with Mom's signature on a piece of paper verifying the chart was said are both acceptable!
We discovered our last purpose this week - Interrogative? An interrogative sentence asks a question and ends in an end mark.
There are 3 ways to make a sentence an Interrogative sentence: Think of the CIA:
1) Change the end mark
Declarative: Jack ran. Interrogative: Jack ran?
2) Interrogative Pronoun (Chart F!)
Declarative: Jack ran. Interrogative: Who ran?
Interrogative pronouns are who, whom, whose, which, what
3) Add a helping verb to the beginning of the sentence (Chart C!)
Declarative: Jack ran. Interrogative: Did Jack run?
Note that adding changing the helping verb also changes the meaning of the sentence:
Will Jack run? Did Jack run? Has Jack run?
We reviewed Simple structure, S-Vi pattern again this week. Next week we will be on to another structure (Compound) and a new pattern (S-Vt-DO)!
Using the Simple structure and S-Vi pattern doesn't change when we diagram Interrogative sentences. If there is a helping verb, we add that to the verb side of the diagram in front of the main verb.
Jack | Did run (Yes, the line should be all the way through!)
The helping verb is capitalized because it is the first word of the sentence. No punctuation in diagramming!
On the ATS, the moms dictated a sentence for the kids, then the kids dictated a sentence for the moms! That was a fun twist! I think it's important for our kids to see us doing the work, too. Try using this technique at home as well! Thanks for being good sports about it! :)
Moms of 2nd/3rd tour kids: Please feel free to challenge your kids with more advanced sentences when we work on the ATS - they can handle it!
HOMEWORK: Mom: read Week 6 lesson - it's a new way of thinking! Kids: Charts, Charts, Charts!! Keep plugging away at these! Practice sentences in your ATS! I'm sure you can come up with your own Simple S-Vi sentences using all the purposes! Challenge yourself!
MATH: We all did a fact frenzy sheet this week. They are certainly getting faster at this! We will continue to do these each week. We also paired off and played an untimed round of N2K. Giving them time to do it together and talk it out was beneficial. I appreciated seeing the kids working together and showing the new kids how they got their answers. Thanks, moms, for helping out! Next week we will do a class round of N2K.
IEW: The Boston Tea Party: We reviewed strong verbs and the kids gave good examples!
I reminded everyone about EZ+1. Your kids' papers do not have to include all the dress ups/style techniques (ST) that have been introduced. Use one dress up/ST until its a cinch to add to a paper then use the next dress up/ST. There's no pressure for all papers to use ALL the things. Don't stress out and don't let the kids stress out! It's a process and a marathon!
We reviewed the Story Sequence Chart (SSC) and talked through how brainstorming can be effective in papers. We did answer a few of the SSC questions together on the board and you can use those to begin answering the questions to complete the KWO. The brainstorming on the board DOES NOT take the place of the KWO. It's just a place to write down important facts so they are easy to refer to instead of having to look back at the source text every time.
When filling out the KWO, keep historical facts correct and embellish the story in other ways. 5 senses words can be beneficial in completing your story.
Help the kids work through the SSC. It is a completely different way of thinking and requires a lot of hands on help until it becomes natural to write this way. Writing from a non-fiction standpoint is another wrench thrown in. Be patient as you're working together. Do a little at a time. Set a timer, work for that long then walk away. The end result shouldn't be the final draft of a paper. The end result should be confidence in this manner of writing an outline and using the SSC to organize thoughts.
** Please note that because we chose The Fox and the Crow in week 4 as our source text, the source text section on our semester calendar has dropped down a week. We are using "The Boston Tea Party" for week 5 and will use "The Shot Heard Round the World" for week 6. We will not be using the "Colonial Life" text at all but I will add the style techniques from that lesson into next week's class time. I hope this doesn't cause too much confusion.**
HOMEWORK: Mom: read Lesson 7. There are a couple of new style techniques that will be introduced. Kids: work on your SSC. Trust the questions to help you do your KWO!
Hope you all have a great rest of your week! I'm praying for your families as you walk this homeschool road!
Blessings,
M
