Words of Encouragement
“Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.” Proverbs 22:6
While it seems like a burden some days and there is promise in our work, we and our children will be blessed by this process. God's direction is where we are headed!
EEL: We started the day with practicing on our ATS - Jesus loves me, so Jesus loves you. The kids knocked this out of the park! They were engaged and on task!
Structure: We are still working with Compound structure. Remembering our FANBOYS that connect two complete sentences.
Jane dusts the furniture AND Jack takes out the trash.
Purpose: Imperative purpose. These sentences give a command, have an implied (you) as the subject and require a 2nd person verb. 2nd person meaning you are talking to someone else.
(you) Jane, dust the furniture and (you) Jack, take out the trash.
Using the Imperative purpose the person we are talking to becomes a Noun of Direct Address. (NDA) while the (you) becomes the subject. NDA describes who we are talking about. For example, in the sentence above Jane and Jack now become NDA because the subject is (you).
Pattern: We stayed with S-Vt-DO this week and practiced it in our ATS.
P.O.S: Adverbs - we sang the Adverb song from Foundations last year and we answered all the questions using the sentence Mama danced.
Mama danced.
How? terribly
When? yesterday
Where? in the hot tub (prepositional phrase!)
Why? because she was happy (subordinate clause! -because)
How often? daily, frequently
How much? abundantly
To what extent? very slowly, rather clumsily
Under what condition? while it rained (subordinate clause! www.asia)
Adverbs can be found on Chart I in your Gear section. Have the kids copy this!
We also learned another type of Noun: the Appositive (AP). An appositive is a noun (or pronoun) directly beside another noun that describes it.
My dog Rover can learn tricks.
Rover is the Appositive - it describes dog.
HOMEWORK: Mom - read week 8 - new pattern next week! Practice the ATS with your kids! Have them read a sentence to you and work out the ATS together!
Kids: Charts! We are still working toward the Sonic gift card! 260 charts by week 12!!
IEW: We changed groups this week for reading our papers. The kids really worked hard over the break. I heard numerous examples of dress ups! We split into groups this week but because we were missing a few people, and will have others out next week, I will wait to assign groups until everyone is back.
I introduced the Topic Sentence and Clincher this week. The topic sentence introduces what the paragraph is about. The clincher ties a nice bow on the end of the paragraph by repeating or reflecting 2-3 words from the topic sentence. From here on out, each paragraph in your child's paper should have a topic sentence and a clincher.
We discussed researching a topic and realized that if we were to write a paper on all the information we found on a topic, it would be too long to read! This is where Unit 4 comes in: Summarizing a Reference.
I told them to "Some-a-rize" their reference/source text. They need to choose the most interesting information and put those facts into their KWO. Remember mommas:
Hands ON structure and style
Hands OFF content
This style of writing can be fun and exciting! We are using the HBW Declaration of Independence as our source text but please find a reference that will interest your child if the one provided doesn't capture their attention.
Remind the kids that they are looking for FACTS that are INTERESTING to them. And they need to read the entire text before starting on their KWO. They may not find any interesting facts in the first paragraph but will likely find many in the other ones.
They can rearrange their facts to make their paper flow if they want. They can combine facts into one sentence. When they edit their paper is when the arranging and finding places to add dress ups can happen. Remember: EZ+1.
We talked about Quality Adjectives this week as well. Banned Adjectives are good and bad. The kids must find other ways to say those words from here on out. In your SRP starting on page 106 are lists of adjectives your kids can select from.
Our assignment for next week, the Declaration of Independence paper, should be 1 paragraph. If you choose a difference reference/source text still keep the paper to one paragraph.
HOMEWORK: Mom - read week 11 - the Louisiana Purchase. We will use Unit 4 style for weeks 7-9. We are introducing www.asia.b next week!
Kids: KWO, Edit, dress up and write the final draft of your paper! I know you can do it! :)
Have a great week friends. As always, my offer to help in any way stands. See you next Wednesday,
M
