Week 19: Parse, diagram, and modify your EEL sentences.

Good morning, EEL families! My post is short and sweet this week.

Your EEL guide continues to deepen our understanding of the English language with a thorough review of verbs. Use Lesson 19 as you see fit; back up to previous material if you need to. Continue parsing, diagramming and modifying at your child's level. Work on those verb anatomy charts if you can.

We decided to leave our IEW critique assignment at three weeks. Thus, the only writing the kids are responsible for this week is a rough draft paragraph of their conclusions. We'll revise and polish next week. If they need help figuring out how to write their opinions without using the words "I" or "you" or "my," the book gives suggestions and there may be additional help in the online IEW resource notebook.

It's so hard to believe, but we've only five weeks left in our EEL year! Amazing. Thanks for sharing your kids along the way.

Erin

Week 18: Practice, review and master what you've learned.

Hi, everyone. What a great group of moms and students we have at Westside! It was just a joy to be back among the living today. I missed you all last week!

After a cursory review of adjectives, we devoted most of our EEL time to a fun (at least I liked it...) review of our sentence structures, purposes and patterns. I didn't get to inspect each student's paper for correctness, but we did go over the answers in class. You might want to inquire at home as to how they did on their own. It may help you discover which sentence patterns come easily to them at this point and which they find more challenging.

We also celebrated the fact that we've covered all 18 weeks of memory work. From here on out, it's just review, review, review. Yahoo!

This is the point in the year when each mom needs to evaluate her student's progress in the curriculum. Nearly all of the kids will be at a different point. The next six weeks in class will carry us back to familiar material but take us to a deeper level with that material. To give an example, we'll review verbs next week but go deeper with our charts and forms than we have before. I want to spend some QeQ time in class as well. You'll have to decide how best to invest your time at home: do you need to stick with reviewing the basics (first- and some second-year students) or should you press forward for deeper understanding (some second-year and most rising Challenge A students)?

As far as the sentences you actually use for practice, you can select from your EEL guide or any other place. One of my favorite things to do at home is use whatever literature we're reading at the time. I choose sentences appropriate to Rachel's level and dictate them for spelling and mechanics practice. Then we label and diagram them and, as time allows, modify them. This week, I hope to begin QeQing them, too. Even one sentence a day can result in much progress.

What I'm saying is that it's perfectly fine if what we do in class either goes much deeper than what you practice at home or looks different than what you're working through at home. My desire is that each family finish the EEL year strong for each particular child.

Moving on to IEW, I handed out Lesson 19a, the first of three lessons in a three-week project. Level A assigns a three-paragraph critique on "Ghenghis Khan and His Hawk," whereas Level B assigns five paragraphs. This week's assignment is either two or three rough draft graphs, depending on the level. We completed the Level A outline in class, and Level B students only need a little more information in order to finish their outlines. We also looked at the example Level A critique included in Lesson 20. We'll look at the Level B example (also in Lesson 20) next week in class. In the meantime, let me know if you have questions regarding the assignment.

Enjoy a warm and wonderful week!

Erin

Week 17: Sickness on Essentials days makes your tutor unhappy!

Dear students and moms,

I'm so sorry not to have been there today. I went to bed fine last night but woke up this morning feeling horrible -- fever, chills, aches, congestion, the works. But I'm glad the kids were able to sit in under Ivey, and I hope everyone received the IEW lesson and vocabulary I sent.

Needless to say, this post will be short so I can go back to bed. :)

Here are the EEL sentences I'd planned to use in class today to illustrate our seventh and final sentence pattern, S-Vt-DO-OCA:

1. Maggie painted the walls of her room blue.
2. The excellent science fair projects made competition for first prize stiff.
3. Jesus calls me holy.
4. The campaign declared the election successful.
5. The students' perfect behavior made their teacher happy.
6. Jack found the roller coaster exhilarating.

You can use these, or the ones from the guide, or your own at home this week for practice and diagramming. I'd also suggest modifying a couple by changing them from simple to complex and then diagramming again.

The other thing I'd planned to cover in EEL was an adjective review. We were going to look at descriptive, limiting and possessive adjectives, as well as adjectives of degree (positive, comparative, superlative.) Consult your guides and the associated charts for good information.

The IEW assignment, Lesson 18, is a ONE-WEEK assignment. Level A students may retell their story in one paragraph; Level B assigns three graphs. The idea is for the kids to take a fairytale, recast it with characters from the Middle Ages, and rewrite in their own words. I made up a sheet and photocopied it into the lesson that suggests additional fairytales the kids could use and also some character possibilities. Please note my suggestion that, if the assignment to change characters is blowing their brains, just rewrite the fairytale "as is" without any character alterations. Keep it simple. I'd rather have them writing confidently than stumbling over a blank page.

IEW does introduce www.asia.b clauses this week, both as sentence openers and as dress-ups in a sentence. We've already covered them in EEL, but please point out the change to the kids as they write so they're not surprised when it comes to their checklists.

OK. I hope and pray to see everyone next week.

Erin

Week 16: I call this class a smart group of students!

Good morning! I feel like I need to apologize for my brain power yesterday. I felt completely muddled at times -- pregnancy brain, I suppose, but frustrating nonetheless. I hope the kids didn't leave completely confused about object complement nouns!

I did introduce our sixth sentence pattern yesterday: S-Vt-DO-OCN. We looked at and labeled several sentences together. We modified them by changing either our sentence structure to complex or our sentence purpose to interrogative, imperative or exclamatory. We also learned how to diagram this newest sentence pattern. At home this week, keep reviewing memory work and begin practicing your OCN sentences. Pretty simple!

Thankfully, IEW is simple, too. Complete Lesson 16 from last week and Lesson 17, which I distributed yesterday, for a finished paper on "The Sword in the Stone." We learned a new decoration: the simile, which compares one thing to another using "like" or "as." Examples would be "hard as a rock" or "gentle as a lamb." And though they aren't included in the lesson, I also discussed metaphors, which call one thing another thing, such as "God is my rock," or "America is a melting pot." The kids can choose among these when adding decorations this week.

If you completed two KWOs and two rough draft paragraphs last week, your IEW assignment this week is to complete your third KWO and rough draft graph, then revise and polish your paper and complete your final checklist. The dress ups and decorations are what will really distinguish one student's paper from another with this assignment, so work diligently in this area!

Thanks. Have a wonderful week at home together. Let me know if you have questions.

Erin