Week 8: For fun at home, add prepositional phrases to your sentences!

What a crazy but great day today! The poor Westside pastor -- our kids' eagerness (read: shrill screams and cheers for their teammates) during math relays disturbed his writing time! We'll be quieter next week...heehee.

During EEL time, we officially introduced prepositional phrases. Incorporate them into your writing, labeling and diagramming this week with these points in mind:

1. A word such as "down" may be an adverb or a preposition. For it to be used as a preposition in a sentence, it must have an object. In "The cat slid down, " 'down' is an adverb. In "The cat slid down the rail," 'down' is a preposition and 'rail' is its object.


2. Help the kids learn to recognize whether a prepositional phrase is adjectival (modifying a noun) or adverbial (modifying a verb).


3. One thing I failed to mention in class is what's called "phrasal prepositions." Check your EEL Guide on page 101, but these are simply prepositions that appear as two or more words, such as "according to" or "with regard to."

Keep working through Tasks 1-4 on your Student EEL Task Sheets. Use your sample sentences at the end of Lesson 8, or encourage the kids to write their own S-Vi and S-Vt-DO sentences. Start simple, then dress them up with adverbs and prepositional phrases.

Also in class, we practiced changing declarative sentences to interrogative, exclamatory and imperative purposes. This actually gave the kids an unknown preview of the first part of Task 5, and you can do this at home, too, if you'd like.

I'm not sure whether IEW assignments will require more or less time this week. It probably depends on each individual's strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. For some, rough drafts are painful; for others, words pour onto the paper. When it comes to revision, the reverse may be true.

I liken this week's assignment to wrapping a gift. Students have spent the past two weeks choosing and packaging the contents. This week, their revisions, corrections and dress-ups will ensure the contents are complete. Adding their introductory statements, clinchers and titles will be like wrapping the package and tying its strings neatly into a bow, making the gift ready to present. They'll have crafted a "total package" paper on the wonders of the ancient world. I can't wait to read them! I know they'll be super, and I plan to allow extra reading time in class next week to reward their hard work.

Last but not least, these kids bless me week after week. I treasure our time together. Thank you for the minutes and hours you spend at home laboring to raise young men and women of character, strength, work ethic, and faith. I pray each and every one of them rises up in the years to come to call you blessed!