Here's what we covered today in class.
EEL: We began a new section of EEL today. We're still sticking with compound sentences, but we've added a new pattern: S-Vl-PN.
We began our coverage of linking verbs today. Please work with your students to have them memorize the list of linking verbs. They will do this later this year in Foundations, but it is beneficial to have them memorize the list now. You can find the definition of a linking verb and a list of verbs on the Verbs chart (chart C). This is also a good time to review the principal parts of a verb. For further information about the verb to be, review chart K in the gear section of your EEL. Remember the linking verb test: you should be able to replace the linking verb with an equal sign without changing the meaning of the sentence.
We also added a new noun usage today: the predicate nominative (you will find this listed on your Nouns chart (chart E). Review the definition of a predicate nominative with your students, making sure to emphasize it can also be a pronoun and it renames or replaces the subject of the sentence.
Speaking of renaming/replacing, make sure to work through the question/confirmation for each practice sentence. This is critical for determining whether the nouns in the predicates of our sentences are direct objects or predicate nominatives. Students need to be very familiar with both the list of linking verbs and also the question confirmation process.
Task sheet, as always, is found on page 435. Weekly sentences are found on page 433. You can always scale back days 4-5 if the sentences are too difficult for your students (but this will require some creativity on your part!).
IEW: We are continuing summarizing references, and this week we have added a new dress up: the sentence opener #2 or the prepositional phrase opener. If your students are having trouble with the #2 opener, pull out the list of prepositions from EEL and do the exercise we did in class today - find a subject opener sentence and try different prepositional phrases as openers. The assignment is lesson 7, writing a paragraph each on the Sphinx and the mummies. Work each sentence opener we've learned thus far into each paragraph at least once. Make sure both paragraphs are completed for next week, because you will need them for lesson 8.
Remind your students to keep their KWOs of facts to no more than 5-7 sentences. We're going for most interesting or most important, not writing an encyclopedia article!
Please let me know if you have any questions!
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Week 8 Recap & Notes
Here's what we covered in class this week:
EEL: We worked on the "Week 8" lesson in the EEL guide, and introduced a new part of speech: the preposition. Any Essentials student who is also taking Foundations has the benefit of memorizing the list of prepositions this year. There is an excellent song on the Foundations memory work audio CD (also available for download on CC Connected) that lists all the prepositions on the chart. So have your students work on memorizing the Prepositions chart (go ahead and memorize all the prepositions - the Foundations tutors, myself included, will just have to deal with it!). Remind your students that prepositions are labeled Pr and the object of the preposition is labeled OP. We also covered the two types of prepositional phrases - adverbial and adjectival. Adverbial phrases modify verbs, adverbs, & adjectives. Adjectival phrases modify nouns & pronouns. A list of questions to test what your prepositional phrase is modifying can be found in this week's lesson in the guide. If time allows, have your students practice adding prepositional phrases to S-Vi declarative sentences and identify if the phrases are adverbial or adjectival.
This week we are working on interrogative, compound, S-Vt-DO sentences. This week will wrap up our coverage of the pattern S-Vt-DO. Remind your students the three ways to make a declarative/exclamatory sentence into an interrogative sentence: 1, change the end mark; 2, use an interrogative pronoun; and 3, add a helping verb. For extra practice, your students can look over the sample sentences on Chart G and practice turning them into interrogative sentences.
As always, weekly sentences are found on page 433 and the editing exercise is at the end of the lesson.
IEW: We get a bit of a break this week after the massive assignment from last week. Today we introduced making KWOs from large blocks of text and summarizing references. Remember, our goal is to outline facts, not just words. Have your students practice selecting the most important and/or interesting facts in their source text(s) and make a KWO from that. Keep your outlines between 5-7 points - no more than 7. You may use the outline we made in class or you can have your student come up with a new outline.
Review a topic & clincher sentence with them, using the paragraph modeled on page 33 of the Student Book. Show how key words in the topic & clincher sentence connect to form a cohesive paragraph.
We did not introduce any new dress ups or decorations this week, but please do not skimp on these in your writing! Make your outline, brainstorm, and check your rough and final drafts against the checklist at the end of Lesson 6.
To find info on this in your materials, we are doing Unit IV/Summarizing References in our TWSS binders, Page 8 of the Student Resource Notebook (top outline only), and Lesson 6/page 33 in the Ancient History-Based Student Book.
Please email me if you have any questions! See everyone next Tuesday! Come prepared to read your papers!
EEL: We worked on the "Week 8" lesson in the EEL guide, and introduced a new part of speech: the preposition. Any Essentials student who is also taking Foundations has the benefit of memorizing the list of prepositions this year. There is an excellent song on the Foundations memory work audio CD (also available for download on CC Connected) that lists all the prepositions on the chart. So have your students work on memorizing the Prepositions chart (go ahead and memorize all the prepositions - the Foundations tutors, myself included, will just have to deal with it!). Remind your students that prepositions are labeled Pr and the object of the preposition is labeled OP. We also covered the two types of prepositional phrases - adverbial and adjectival. Adverbial phrases modify verbs, adverbs, & adjectives. Adjectival phrases modify nouns & pronouns. A list of questions to test what your prepositional phrase is modifying can be found in this week's lesson in the guide. If time allows, have your students practice adding prepositional phrases to S-Vi declarative sentences and identify if the phrases are adverbial or adjectival.
This week we are working on interrogative, compound, S-Vt-DO sentences. This week will wrap up our coverage of the pattern S-Vt-DO. Remind your students the three ways to make a declarative/exclamatory sentence into an interrogative sentence: 1, change the end mark; 2, use an interrogative pronoun; and 3, add a helping verb. For extra practice, your students can look over the sample sentences on Chart G and practice turning them into interrogative sentences.
As always, weekly sentences are found on page 433 and the editing exercise is at the end of the lesson.
IEW: We get a bit of a break this week after the massive assignment from last week. Today we introduced making KWOs from large blocks of text and summarizing references. Remember, our goal is to outline facts, not just words. Have your students practice selecting the most important and/or interesting facts in their source text(s) and make a KWO from that. Keep your outlines between 5-7 points - no more than 7. You may use the outline we made in class or you can have your student come up with a new outline.
Review a topic & clincher sentence with them, using the paragraph modeled on page 33 of the Student Book. Show how key words in the topic & clincher sentence connect to form a cohesive paragraph.
We did not introduce any new dress ups or decorations this week, but please do not skimp on these in your writing! Make your outline, brainstorm, and check your rough and final drafts against the checklist at the end of Lesson 6.
To find info on this in your materials, we are doing Unit IV/Summarizing References in our TWSS binders, Page 8 of the Student Resource Notebook (top outline only), and Lesson 6/page 33 in the Ancient History-Based Student Book.
Please email me if you have any questions! See everyone next Tuesday! Come prepared to read your papers!
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Week 6 Recap & Notes
Hi parents!
I hope you all enjoyed your break last week! Let's recap what we covered in class today.
EEL: Today we introduced a new sentence structure (compound), sentence pattern (S-Vt-DO), & part of speech (conjunctions). Study Chart H this week and make an effort to commit the lists of coordinating (FANBOYS) and subordinating (www.asia.wub) conjunctions to memory. This will benefit you greatly as the year progresses.
We also looked at diagramming S-Vt-DO sentences, and also compound sentences. If you have trouble remembering the Question Confirmation for our sentences, refer to the section at the end of week 3 (Special Section: Analytical Task Sheets in Detail).
Work through the task sheet for your sentences found on page 433 (remember to come up with new, easier sentences if they cannot do days 4 & 5), and tackle this week's editing exercise. Another good exercise would be to go through the examples of compound sentences found on Chart G and break them down into single independent clauses.
Another point I didn't mention in class is to remind your students that if a verb is followed by a prepositional phrase, it is not a transitive verb. I believe one of their sentences this week has an example like that. Review prepositions with them so they will be able to notice what is a prepositional phrase and what is a direct object (with a possible article adjective).
I did not cover Task 5A because of time limits, but the students have already practiced this and can continue doing this on the task sheet. They can also move to the first part of 5B, and practice making their compound sentence into a simple sentence.
IEW: We continued our study of Story Sequence Charts. We are working through Lesson 9 in the Student Book. If they haven't done so already, have your students work through the outline pages in the student book, brainstorm for dress-ups, and write their rough draft. If they've already made it that far, have them work through their checklist this week and write their final draft. Please bring the final draft to class to read next week. We will be on this unit one more week before moving on to the next unit.
Thanks for all your hard work! Hope everyone has a great week!
I hope you all enjoyed your break last week! Let's recap what we covered in class today.
EEL: Today we introduced a new sentence structure (compound), sentence pattern (S-Vt-DO), & part of speech (conjunctions). Study Chart H this week and make an effort to commit the lists of coordinating (FANBOYS) and subordinating (www.asia.wub) conjunctions to memory. This will benefit you greatly as the year progresses.
We also looked at diagramming S-Vt-DO sentences, and also compound sentences. If you have trouble remembering the Question Confirmation for our sentences, refer to the section at the end of week 3 (Special Section: Analytical Task Sheets in Detail).
Work through the task sheet for your sentences found on page 433 (remember to come up with new, easier sentences if they cannot do days 4 & 5), and tackle this week's editing exercise. Another good exercise would be to go through the examples of compound sentences found on Chart G and break them down into single independent clauses.
Another point I didn't mention in class is to remind your students that if a verb is followed by a prepositional phrase, it is not a transitive verb. I believe one of their sentences this week has an example like that. Review prepositions with them so they will be able to notice what is a prepositional phrase and what is a direct object (with a possible article adjective).
I did not cover Task 5A because of time limits, but the students have already practiced this and can continue doing this on the task sheet. They can also move to the first part of 5B, and practice making their compound sentence into a simple sentence.
IEW: We continued our study of Story Sequence Charts. We are working through Lesson 9 in the Student Book. If they haven't done so already, have your students work through the outline pages in the student book, brainstorm for dress-ups, and write their rough draft. If they've already made it that far, have them work through their checklist this week and write their final draft. Please bring the final draft to class to read next week. We will be on this unit one more week before moving on to the next unit.
Thanks for all your hard work! Hope everyone has a great week!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Week 5 Recap & Notes
Hi Parents! I hope you are enjoying our break week. It will nice to get back to routine after this week.
EEL Recap: This week we finished covering the S-Vi sentence pattern, and wrapped up our final purpose for simple sentences (the interrogative purpose). Next week we begin covering compound sentences and will start working on the S-Vt-DO pattern. Take some time over the break to begin familiarizing your students with coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) and subordinating conjunctions (www.asia.wub), a list of which can be found on Chart H. They will need to be able to identify these as we study more complex (no pun intended) sentence structures.
Make sure to review the interrogative purpose and the forms it can take when diagramming. This will be especially helpful for your students as they work through Task 5A and have to change a sentence to the interrogative purpose. We discussed simply having a question mark as the end punctuation (Tara writes?), using a helping verb (Did Tara write?), and using an interrogative pronoun (Who writes?).
Week 4: pages 89-102 of the EEL guide
Blank task sheet: page 435
Weekly practice sentences: page 433
Models of those sentences: pages 97-102.
IEW Recap: This week we began the unit on Narrative Stories. We took our skill of making key word outlines and applied that to making a story sequence chart. The first part of the outline covers the setting & characters of the story - the who, the where, and the when of the story. The second part of the outline covers the plot & conflict - the what of the story. Here the students need to identify the conflict, and what the characters thought, said, and did. The final part of the outline is the climax/resolution/epilogue/moral theme. Have the students identify each of these items in the story. This model can be used on any length of story: short stories, Bible stories, fables, and even novels.
The assignment this week is to work through Lesson 9 in the Student book. Outline, brainstorm, and write a rough draft to bring in on Tuesday. On Tuesday, we will practice making another story sequence chart in class, then go over editing marks on our rough drafts.
Narratives/Unit 3: pages 27-36 of the TWSS guide
Lesson 9: pages 51-60 of the student book
Lagniappe: Brandy at Half A Hundred Acre Wood (a fabulous CC blog - consider subscribing to her posts via email or reader) wrote a post on how they use their Essentials notebook at home. If you're struggling to get in a rhythm of doing Essentials at home, check out her post for some ideas: http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2012/09/our-essentials-student-notebook.html.
If your students are having some trouble with question confirmation, here are some links from the Shurley Grammar site (which is the model EEL follows):
https://www.shurley.com/?3f9b06c8f52a14bd1250c9a862d2d
https://www.shurley.com/pdf/parent_help/Parent_Help_Booklet_Level_2.pdf (Q/C beginning on page 8)
See you Tuesday!
EEL Recap: This week we finished covering the S-Vi sentence pattern, and wrapped up our final purpose for simple sentences (the interrogative purpose). Next week we begin covering compound sentences and will start working on the S-Vt-DO pattern. Take some time over the break to begin familiarizing your students with coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) and subordinating conjunctions (www.asia.wub), a list of which can be found on Chart H. They will need to be able to identify these as we study more complex (no pun intended) sentence structures.
Make sure to review the interrogative purpose and the forms it can take when diagramming. This will be especially helpful for your students as they work through Task 5A and have to change a sentence to the interrogative purpose. We discussed simply having a question mark as the end punctuation (Tara writes?), using a helping verb (Did Tara write?), and using an interrogative pronoun (Who writes?).
Week 4: pages 89-102 of the EEL guide
Blank task sheet: page 435
Weekly practice sentences: page 433
Models of those sentences: pages 97-102.
IEW Recap: This week we began the unit on Narrative Stories. We took our skill of making key word outlines and applied that to making a story sequence chart. The first part of the outline covers the setting & characters of the story - the who, the where, and the when of the story. The second part of the outline covers the plot & conflict - the what of the story. Here the students need to identify the conflict, and what the characters thought, said, and did. The final part of the outline is the climax/resolution/epilogue/moral theme. Have the students identify each of these items in the story. This model can be used on any length of story: short stories, Bible stories, fables, and even novels.
The assignment this week is to work through Lesson 9 in the Student book. Outline, brainstorm, and write a rough draft to bring in on Tuesday. On Tuesday, we will practice making another story sequence chart in class, then go over editing marks on our rough drafts.
Narratives/Unit 3: pages 27-36 of the TWSS guide
Lesson 9: pages 51-60 of the student book
Lagniappe: Brandy at Half A Hundred Acre Wood (a fabulous CC blog - consider subscribing to her posts via email or reader) wrote a post on how they use their Essentials notebook at home. If you're struggling to get in a rhythm of doing Essentials at home, check out her post for some ideas: http://www.halfahundredacrewood.com/2012/09/our-essentials-student-notebook.html.
If your students are having some trouble with question confirmation, here are some links from the Shurley Grammar site (which is the model EEL follows):
https://www.shurley.com/?3f9b06c8f52a14bd1250c9a862d2d
https://www.shurley.com/pdf/parent_help/Parent_Help_Booklet_Level_2.pdf (Q/C beginning on page 8)
See you Tuesday!
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