Week 11

EEL

Big review today.  The only thing that changed from week 10 was the sentence purpose.  We moved from declarative to exclamatory.  Keep practicing the difference between a predicate nominative and predicate adjective.

This is a great time in the semester to memorize the questions that correspond to adjectives and adverbs.

Adjectives: Which one? How many? Which? Whose?
Adverbs: How? When? Where? Why? To what extent? Under what condition? How often? How much?

IEW

Our vocabulary words were--solemn, tyrant, adept, enthrall

I introduced two new dress-ups and a decoration that will be on the checklist this week.  The dress-ups were both sentence openers.  This means that the first word of the sentence will be a certain type.

The #2 sentence opener is the preposition opener.  Example: In the cold house, the family could barely sleep.

The #3 opener is the -ly (adverb): Thankfully, the repairman came the next morning and fixed their heater.

The decoration that we learned was personification, giving a human characteristic to a thing or idea.  We looked at the explanation of this on page 48 of the student resource notebook (gray pages). Example:

The pine trees bowed mournfully under the weight of a heavy snow.

Finally, we covered Unit 5, Writing from Pictures.  The assignment is a three paragraph paper, but, moms, you can make it one paragraph if you choose.  The idea is to start with a picture and then to ask a series of questions in order to pull a story from the brain.  Our key word outline is pulled from the imagination, but it begins with the central fact of the picture.  So, though we take the story where we wish, it starts with the observable.

On the pictures corresponding with this lesson (p. 143), we stated the central fact of the first picture this way:

boy, riding, message, urgent

From there, we asked the questions found on the bottom of page 142 and also the questions on the left-hand side of the Unit V chart to pull out more information.  Finally, we tied it up nicely by making our paragraph clincher repeat and reflect words from our picture's central fact.

Have fun with this story.  We suggested various plots to go with the picture: we proposed that he was delivering a birthday invitation to General Washington from General Green, also that it was a game of chess and the message was General Green's next move.  Perhaps he was actually running from a lion. Maybe the soldier in the second picture is his best friend and turns away.  Maybe the horse is under him in the water, maybe….maybe… you fill in the blank.

Also, students can use any picture as a source.  If there is only one picture, have them think about what happens before and after.  Also, students can use the pictures on page 149 if they would rather.

Have fun!  Can't wait to hear your stories next week.  We will enjoy doughnuts and there will be plenty of time for reading papers.