Week 23: To know verbals is to love verbals!

For our final EEL lesson of the year, we explored the world of verbs and verbals! My favorite part of the day happened when we finished parsing verb forms, and they said, "That's fun! Can we do more?" Don't you love it?

We discussed verbals first: infinitives, gerunds and participles. Together in class, we completed a worksheet defining and diagramming each type. I handed out worksheets to the moms, too, but if you didn't get one, let me know.

Then we turned our attention to verbs, briefly reviewing type, principal parts, person, number, tense, and voice. The bulk of our time we spent studying the four forms: simple, perfect, progressive and perfect-progressive. Using a basic "recipe" for each form, we put them together using the verb "jump"; then we pulled them apart in what was basically a QeQ format. They excelled at this part! I was really proud! Again, everyone -- moms included -- had a worksheet.

We touched on verb moods also: indicative, imperative and subjunctive. Basically, indicative mood is what we speak in most of the time: statements and questions. Imperative mood gives orders or requests. Subjunctive mood, I always say, is the wishful thinking mood! It "wishes" for something contrary to fact. An example would be, "If only I were taller, I could smash more tennis balls."

Moving on to our final class, we will probably begin a few minutes late next week. The Foundations group is celebrating the end of the year with a pizza party lunch, and I want the kids to enjoy every minute of that. SO, we'll round them up at 1 p.m. to put on their character costumes for IEW. We'll get started whenever they're done. After they read their papers, we'll have a little party with goodies (I think Debbie is heading that -- correct me if I'm wrong.) and they'll have time to redeem their tickets for cash.

For those who weren't in class Tuesday, we're using the Final Checklist on page 125 in the IEW Student Book. Students will need to revise, dress up, polish, and add introductory and clincher statements to their rough draft paragraphs.

Can't wait to see everyone Tuesday for our final class of the year!