Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Week 3

What a lot to cover in one class period.  Whew! We made it.

EEL

Congratulations to the students for winning the Chart A showdown against the moms.  But you only won by seconds.  Watch out! Next time moms may be out to annihilate you.

This week we continued the overview of EEL.  We took a close-up view of declarative and exclamatory sentences and talked about the differences, but mostly we looked at Nouns (Chart E) and Pronouns (Chart F).  Then we moved away from the grammar track and tackled the task sheet.

Grammar Portion (Uploading information)
Nouns (Chart E)
Definition box at the top (Memorize, please).
Usage (jobs) 3rd year? are you ready to memorize?
Attributes, 2nd/3rd year memorize.

A CRASH of Rhinos! Chocolate to whomever brings in a collective noun next week!

Pronouns (Chart F)
Definition box at the top (Memorize, please).
Rest of Chart, 2nd/3rd year students, memorize a bit more than you know.  Just go deeper.

Dialectic Portion (Understanding and applying information)

We started the Task Sheet by touring the student notebook and finding the dialectic section that has
1. Task Sheet
2. Simple Steps for Solving Sentences (Question Confirmation)
3. Weekly Sample Sentences
4. Abbreviation Key

The Task Sheet provides a step-by-step guide to classifying sentences and analyzing their construction.

Task 1, Dictation.  Dictate a sentence to the student and have them write it out on the lines provided. Begin with 2 word sentences in the S/Vi pattern.

Task 2, Mechanics.  Work through the questions and check for all the things that a sentence must have, plus punctuation and spelling.

Task 3, Question Confirmation. Use your Simple Steps for Solving Sentences or your own memory to determine sentence structure, pattern and purpose.

Task 4, Diagramming. Use the correct framework for the sentence pattern you have (See Chart A, Sentence Patterns).  In the case of the S/Vi sentence that you will be working on this week, the horizontal line has the subject on the left and the verb on the right with a bisecting line that goes all the way through the horizontal line.  If you would like to add an article adjective (a, an, the) or an -ly adverb, please remember that these modifiers go on a slanted line under the word each modifies.

Get out the Task Sheet and try it each day.  Do at least one sentence per day.

IEW
A two paragraph assignment! We are working through lesson 5, "The Mayflower Mishap. Please complete the Key Word Outline (KWO) for the second paragraph then write both paragraphs.  But before you write...

We talked about 5 senses words and adding the "show, not tell" factor to our writing.  Use the exercise on p. 44 to work through brainstorming and try to determine which 5 sense words you will add to your paper.  You will need at least one, 5 sense word per paragraph.  Refer to the yellow sheets in the style section of your IEW student notebook if you need suggestions.  After you determine which 5 sense words you want to incorporate…

Now write your paper.

Also, we introduced strong verbs.  Though the strong verb requirement is not on "The Mayflower Mishap" checklist, I would like you to add it.  Please look through your paragraphs and find

Banned Verbs 
(go/went, come/came, say/said, get/got)

Replace them with strong verbs (refer to suggestions on the blue pages).  Please know that strong verbs do not have to be fancy; they just have to show action. For example, run, jump, scribble, and devour are all strong verbs.

For 2nd and 3rd year students, optional 3rd paragraph, "Plymouth Colony and Samoset" from Lesson 6. This checklist already has the strong verb requirement.

Personal
Thank you for sticking with me today.  We had so much material to introduce.  I know that it was difficult to ingest for that long.  If you have any questions or are overwhelmed or need clarification, please contact me; I want to help.



Tuesday, September 16, 2014

Week 2

It is a privilege to tutor your children.  I love their energy, their diving right in to the material and wrestling with it.  Thank you for all that you do to prepare them at home.  You and they are treasures.


EEL

More overview! Remember, soon we will back up and take this one step at a time.

In class we competed by writing out Chart A (Sentence Classifications).  I won today, but it was close! Keep practicing every day.  Next week we will review this again, but this time moms will compete against kids.  Moms, get ready!

We also looked at the part of speech overview (p. 443 in the EEL Guide).  This lists the 8 parts of speech and the definitions that correlate.  It also takes it a step further and gives the question to ask in order to determine usage in a sentence.

We also did a big verb overview in class, walking through Chart C (Verbs).  We covered the entire chart, but you only need to work on memorizing…

1st year student: 
     * Definition of a verb (gray bar at top of chart)
     * Question to ask in order to identify a verb in a sentence (gray bar at top of chart).
2nd and 3rd year student: 
    Go as far as you can go then push a little further.  The suggested order for memorizing is the gray boxes, then the bold type, then the italic type.
    * I would love to see that everyone in the 2nd and 3rd year knows at least the 4 verb types and 4 verb attributes.

We also talked about the difference between the transitive and intransitive verb.  We will cover this again on week 6, so don't be too concerned with getting this quite yet.

What do I do this week? 
Practice Chart A (Sentence Classification) again
Work on Memorizing a portion of Chart C (Verbs)


IEW

It was so wonderful to hear your first compositions! I adored your lovely illustrations. I had forgotten to mention adding illustrations (it's optional). We will let more people read next week.

Who/Which Clause
Learned who/which clause dress-up (p 31 student text)
Practiced creating w/w clauses by writing…

     (My Name), who                                                   , loves Essentials class.

Remember, the w/w is extra information that describes the noun it follows.  The sentence must still be complete if you take out the w/w clause.  Also, it needs to be set off by commas.

Key Word Outline
We did the key word outline (KWO) for this week's source text (Jamestown, p. 34) 
We practiced adding a w/w clause.

Final Clincher/Title
We touched on the final clincher (last sentence) of a paragraph and how we repeat or reflect some of the words to create a title that wraps up the package and adds a bow on top. The repeated/reflected title is that extra touch.

Vocabulary
We briefly introduced this week's vocabulary words: askew, presume, flank, reverently.

What do I do this week?
Write a paragraph from your KWO and add in both dress-ups we have learned so far, -ly and who/which.  Underline these in the text.  Add a vocabulary word.  Create a title by repeating or reflecting words from your last sentence. Check off your checklist and put your final draft and the checklist in a page protector. You can also add an illustration if you would like.

*** Moms, please remember that with these dress-ups, only do what your student can handle.  As we add more, feel free to edit that checklist and make it manageable for your student. Right now we only have two, the -ly word and the w/w clause.

If you are overwhelmed or not getting this please talk to me.  Give me a call or shoot me a text or email so we can connect.  Often, the big challenge in the beginning is just learning to navigate the maze of information.

Blessings to each of you!

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

Week 1

Well, we are off and going!

English Grammar

In EEL this week, we learned Chart A, Sentence Classifications.  Practice, practice, practice writing out this chart over and over.  Maybe someone will beat me next week.  Moms, you might want to practice too. We may just have to pit moms against students.

Remember, we are laying the grammar foundation at this point.  Understanding will come later when we get to the dialectic portion.

Writing
In IEW this week, we learned how to key word outline (KWO).

For first and year students, just use the KWO we did in class to write your one paragraph paper.  If you didn't write it down, just do the KWO again.
1. Start off this week with oral retelling from the KWO.  If your student can't retell from the outline, work with him to adjust the KWO until he can restate without much problem.
2. Have him either dictate to you, or type or write out his retelling.
3. Edit grammar, spelling and punctuation if necessary, but don't change tremendously much moms.
4. Add your -ly adverb (refer to -ly list for some options--green sheets between blue and pink in student guide)
5. Check off your checklist (I handed this out, or on pg. 21), making sure to use the MLA format
6. Place completed paragraph and checklist in a page protector to turn in.

For second year students, please use the above instructions or follow the third year student instructions.  It's up to mom.

Third year students...
Same as first year students except, complete a KWO for the text on page 16, titled "Europe Meets America".  Another option is to break away from the text and use another source.  Remember, this KWO technique works with any paragraph.

Happy memorizing and writing!