Week 8, Did we find prepositions, and did we party?

What a fun week!  So glad we got to celebrate filling the jar with balls!  Thank you, Mrs. Gaines, for doing all the hard work to put together such an enjoyable experience.

Class Overview

Grammar Rule
We highlighted grammar rule 2B (page 60) and talked about using semicolons between independent clauses when we employ the words, however, thus, accordingly, indeed, therefore, for example, that is, and namely.  The key to semicolons is to make sure that they are used to join two independent clauses that are closely related; therefore, don't use a semicolon when only joining words.

Compound Interrogative
By way of review, we used
1) inflection
2) introductory interrogative pronouns (who, whom, whose, which, what), or
3) introductory helping verbs, to change compound declarative sentences into compound interrogatives.

We also reviewed compound subjects and predicates as opposed to compound sentences.

Prepositions
We introduced prepositions by reciting as many as we know.  Thankfully, this is cycle 1, so everyone is pretty familiar with this from the morning memory work.  Next, we talked about the fact that a prepositional phrase is made up of a preposition, its object (always a noun or pronoun), and everything in between the two.  We asked the question preposition, who/what? to find the object.

Next, we looked at a short passage from the Voyage of the Dawn Treader, by C.S. Lewis, and picked out all the prepositional phrases.  This is a great exercise for students who are getting used to the concept.  Use a newspaper or magazine article if your child needs more practice.  We used the passage where Reepicheep is introduced, right after Lucy, Edmond, and Eustace are fished out of the water and flopped onto the deck of the Dawn Treader.  We found thirteen or fourteen prepositional phrases.  Great job, guys!

We also touched briefly on the fact that prepositional phrases can be used as adverbs or adjectives in a sentence.

The boy hugged his mother in the morning.  In the morning tells WHEN he hugged.  WHEN? tells me that it is an adverb, because adverbs tell how, when, where, why, to what extent, and under what condition.

The boy in the morning hugged his mother.  If we were comparing a morning class to an afternoon class, and I was telling another mother about two boys, one from each class, I might differentiate WHICH boy, by calling him the boy in the morning.  In this case, the prepositional phrase is adjectival. We will cover adjectives soon!

Grammar (Drill)

Review charts.  Focus on any memory work associated with the basics of each chart (gray bars).  Really memorize the list of questions to ask to determine if a word is an adverb.

Dialectic (Understanding)

As you work through the task sheet, remember to first put parenthesis around your prepositional phrases.  This helps get them out of the way, clearing away some possible confusion when finding the bones of a sentence.

Use those task sheets and simple steps for solving sentences!

See you all next week, especially those who were out for sickness.  Seth, Jessica, Cara and Will, praying for you to be healthy!