Week 23: We, the people of EEL, have only one remaining week!

Good morning. I don't know about the students, but I had a blast Tuesday listening to their tongue twisters and diagramming the "Preamble" to our Constitution. Who would have ever thought a simple sentence could go on and on and on...and on! Although the kids groaned, I think they secretly enjoyed it, too. :)

There's not much to report this week. I introduced subjunctive mood, and the three-sentence example I gave of what I call the "wishful thinking" mood was this:

I should clean my room. If I could, I would. But as it were, I think I'll do it tomorrow.

Review EEL material as you see fit, but I expect you'll devote most of your time to completing your final IEW assignment. Remember we will present during class next week. Costume is optional.

Students should also count and bring their tickets for cash redemption. Hopefully they will have earned enough for a kid's meal or a couple of iTunes songs.

See you Tuesday one last time. Meanwhile, enjoy the budding leaves on these beautiful days.

Erin

Week 22: With two weeks to go, finish strong!

Only two weeks! Unbelievable, isn't it? It seems as though we just began our journey into the heart of the English language. This time of year always proves conflictual -- I anticipate the end, but I know I'll miss our time together each week.

For EEL yesterday, we reviewed our purposes, patterns and structures and then modified and diagrammed a compound-complex sentence with adjectives, adverbs and a prepositional phrase. The students remained engaged throughout the process; I'm really proud of them! Next week -- I can't wait -- we'll diagram the Preamble to the Constitution. :) It's lo-o-o-ong!

During IEW, I discussed anecdotal openers and the intro-clincher relationship. I distributed Lessons 19, 20 and 21. Everyone should continue working on their biographies according to the information I wrote last week, using the lessons I handed out as they relate to your student's level.

Two weeks from yesterday, we present in costume. It's a fantastic way to cap our year.

See you next week.

Erin

Week 21: When we meet for class, I tutor and students learn.

Good afternoon! I hope everyone is well. I can't believe we only have three weeks left til year's end. Oh my. How time flies!

During EEL yesterday, I introduced our final sentence structure: compound-complex. I believe the kids grasped this concept easily. Put into math terms,

compound + complex = compound-complex

Using the 112 Compound-Complex Sentences chart from your guide, we examined several of these and diagrammed one for good measure. :)

We also learned about verbals: infinitives, gerunds and participles. Again, we looked at examples and diagrammed. Spend time on this material at home this week as you see fit for your student's level.

Regarding IEW, I'll attempt to be thorough in my explanation of our final assignment of the year, a five-paragraph biography research report, which we began yesterday.

• 
  
  First, the assignment spans several lessons in your IEW books: 17-21. Second, it instructs students to choose a person from the Revolutionary War period; I gave them license to choose any American historical figure.




• 
  
  We have three "working" weeks to complete the assignment. When we meet for our final class of the year, Week 24, the students will present their papers in costume.




• 
  
  The stapled assignment I distributed yesterday contains three important elements. The first page is two examples (front and back) of five-paragraph biographies following the basic essay structure (I handed out a model of this a few weeks back from the IEW Resource Notebook.) These biographies also feature what IEW calls "anecdotal openers." I'll teach this opener next week in class. The two middle pages are Lesson 17, which introduces the assignment. The fourth page is the final checklist from Lesson 21, which I included so that parents and students can see where we are headed over this three-week period.




• 
  
  After your and your student choose the character about whom you wish to write, you need to select source texts. My suggestion is search for a combination of book and internet sources that fall at or below your student's reading level. Children's literature and short articles are appropriate. We want them to grow in their ability to capture information in an outline, and they will feel more successful with simpler source texts.




• 
  
  Once you've selected and perused your source texts, you'll need to discuss possible topics. The number of topics you choose will determine the length of your paper. Take the opportunity to show your student how books and articles are themselves often divided into topics. For example, an article about Ben Franklin could be divided into his early years and education, his service to his country, and his inventions. Even those topics could be divided into sub-topics. Anyway, the students should find topic ideas in the way their source texts are structured.




• 
  
  While choosing topics, consider how many paragraphs you want to tackle. I see several options, which are dependent on level and time: five paragraphs (intro, three body, conclusion) with an anecdotal opener; five paragraphs with a hook opener; three paragraphs (body only) with an anecdotal or hook opener plus an introductory statement and final clincher; three paragraphs (body only) with an introductory statement and final clincher; one general paragraph with some combination of an anecdotal opener, intro and clincher.




• 
  
  When topics are settled, re-read your source texts with your first topic in mind and complete your key word outlines. Repeat the process for your second and third topics. Use the third page from your stapled assignment (pages 103 and 104 at bottom from your books) as a model for EACH topic. The assignment is to outline from three source texts for each topic and then fuse those three outlines into one outline from which you will write the rough draft.

Now just how far should you progress this week? Ultimately, it's up to you. In my house, if we can select our historical figure, source texts and topics, and complete our outline process, I'll probably be happy. That would give us next week to write rough draft paragraphs and outline our first and fifth graphs. Then we could spend our final week writing those two paragraphs, completing an anecdotal opener and revising the entire paper.

Adjust your schedule accordingly! Although this final project is a lofty endeavor, it's worth it! Try to dig in. :) I'll see everyone next week.

Erin

Week 20: For IEW, develop a thoughtful opinion.

Good morning. Sorry I didn't complete the post yesterday. Fortunately, there's not an abundance of new information to communicate.

In EEL Tuesday, we reviewed adjectives (as words, phrases and clauses), prepositional phrases and finally looked at the components of the perfect progressive verb form. Invest your time where needed and desired this week.

During IEW, we listened to some wholly fabulous faith essays. The families who make up our group impress me and inspire me wholeheartedly. What precious, precious treasure your children are!

Our IEW assignment for the week is to complete the critique of the historical fiction narrative on the Lewis and Clark expedition. Work with your student to develop a thoughtful and fleshed-out opinion paragraph. Then revise and polish your critiques to turn them in next week.

One note: I returned papers this past Tuesday. I wrote a little more on my older students' papers in the way of comments and suggestions. If there are any questions there, please let me know.

Thanks. Have a blessed week,
Erin

Week 19: Learn to critique a narrative.

Good morning. Did everyone get enough sugar yesterday? Thank you for all of my treats. The dwindling chocolate supply in my pantry has been restored!

At home with EEL this week, you possess much freedom. The guide reviews verbs and introduces the verb anatomy chart for the verb "play." During class time, we finally worked our way through the progressive tense forms and spent the rest of our 45 minutes identifying sentences.

For IEW, we began a two-week writing assignment critiquing a short fictional account of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The lesson superbly lays out the process for you to follow, including a three-paragraph and a five-paragraph option. Only part of the rough draft paragraphs are due next week; the final paragraph rough draft will be written the following week before the paper is revised and polished.

We will continue listening to the students read their faith essays next Tuesday. What tender, thoughtful, compassionate hearts they have!

Erin

Week 18: Review!

Ahh...time to take a deep breath! Week 18 in EEL stipulates "nothing new"!

The sentence structure, purpose and pattern of the lesson is complex imperative S-Vt-DO-OCN and S-Vt-DO-OCA, but you have the freedom to choose your work at home. Definitely try to incorporate Tasks 1-6 into your discussion where you can.

During class today, we reviewed our 112 classifications of structure, purpose and pattern. The students engaged extremely well during class. How much they have learned so far! We reviewed everything using a worksheet I made about blue whales. Parents who were absent can ask to see this worksheet; it should help jog memories.

Our IEW time consisted of demonstrating the structures to follow for one-, three-, and five-paragraph essays. We also reviewed and introduced sentence openers. I won't write much about the optional essay lengths because of the detail I went into last week. But each student carried home two examples of structure: One says Lesson 7 at the top and shows how to add an introductory statement and final clincher to a three-paragraph essay. The other, which I printed out of the IEW Resource Notebook, teaches the structure of a five-paragraph essay that includes an introduction paragraph and a conclusion paragraph.

Regarding sentence openers, we discussed two new ones:

1. The -ing opener. Example: Running like the wind, I raced my friend down the sidewalk.


2. The www.asia.b opener. Example: When I read my Bible, I grow closer to the Lord.

Students should remember that sentence openers ADD ON to or INTRODUCE an existing sentence. For example, "Winning is fun" is a sentence, but it doesn't count as an -ing opener because the sentence wouldn't remain without the subject noun "winning."

The IEW book actually teaches this opener, called #4, on page 131 of our books. Try looking over this together at home, because this page actually contradicts what I allowed in class today (sorry!): I was letting them use "During..." as a #4, but IEW apparently counts it as a #2 prepositional phrase opener only. IEW says the -ing word

• must be a verb and


• it must begin a phrase and


• be followed by a comma setting it apart from the main body of the sentence.

Anyway, students should complete, revise and polish their rough drafts of their faith essays at home. I'll collect these, along with completed checklists, next Tuesday. I can't wait to hear them read! I'll try to allow ample time.

Have a superb week reviewing and writing together,

Mrs. Erin

Week 17: Do you consider our seventh sentence pattern difficult or easy?

Celebrating our seventeenth week together, we learned our seventh sentence pattern today. Hooray! We have now discussed every item of information on our sentence classifications chart save the compound-complex structure. I'll review all seven sentence patterns next week. What fun to know we can identify every sentence pattern in the English language!

So what is this pattern? Subject - verb transitive - direct object - object complement adjective, or S-Vt-DO-OCA. After learning about object complement nouns last week, the students took to OCAs like ducks to water. :) Your EEL guide demonstrates clearly and simply that an OCA is an adjective that follows and describes a direct object. During class, we completed Tasks 1 through 6 for the sample S-Vt-DO-OCA sentence, "The artist painted his canvas green." Most of the students seemed to understand and be able to contribute to our completion of the task sheet. It's encouraging to see the fruits of learning, so I hope you are seeing them, too.

Depending on your student's level, you can decide where best to invest your time at home this week. Opportunities abound! The lesson in your EEL guides includes an adjectives review and touches again on verb anatomy. I managed to squeeze in the simple and perfect forms today (finally...) and will (hopefully) get to progressive and perfect progressive next Tuesday. Remember, though, that the verb anatomy is advanced material. First-year students and parents need not stress there.

Upon student request for a creative writing assignment, I decided to revise our IEW schedule on your syllabus that I handed out in August. Instead of writing about the Constitution, we are going to complete Lesson 25, which is an essay written from a prompt. We will devote two weeks to this essay, prompted by the First Amendment guaranteeing religious freedom, about how our families practice faith. The lesson itself is easily comprehended, but I want to explain three different options for completing it, basically a Level A, Level B and Level C.

• Level A: Students may write one paragraph, the format of which is in your photocopied lesson. Two weeks is ample time to complete one paragraph, so take your time and enjoy the process of outlining, writing, revising and polishing.


• Level C: Students may write five paragraphs -- an introductory graph, three topic graphs, and a concluding graph. This format is also laid out in detail in your photocopied lesson. As to a schedule, I'd recommend outlining and writing your three body paragraphs this week. Then outline and write your intro and concluding graphs early next week. Finally, use Friday and Monday of next week to revise and polish all five paragraphs. (Just a note: Pages 107-110 teach these two outer graphs very well.)


• Level B: Students may write three topic paragraphs, plus an introductory statement and a final clincher. I will demonstrate an introductory statement and final clincher during class next week, but for those who have the book, they are introduced in the IEW Medieval History-Based Writing Lessons on page 49. The American history book we are using this year does not include this option, but I'll show you next week! Families who choose this option can spread the outlining and writing of the three graphs out over the two-week span.

Now, as to which level each student should tackle, you as the parent have that choice. My suggestions follow: All students enrolling in Challenge A next year should write a five-paragraph essay. Second-year or more advanced students should write three paragraphs, and first-year students or families whose time is tight these next two weeks should write a single graph. Regardless of the level you choose, please check your student's outlines before the rough draft process begins. You may even need to go through the outlines with them to insure they are using the provided questions to "prompt" the right kind of information for their outlines. They don't have to answer every question exhaustively by any means, but the questions should be used as tools to help pull information from their brains!

Finally, their Declaration of Independence and Preamble reports really impressed me these past two weeks. Fantastic efforts should be applauded!

See you next week. Please call or email with questions.

Erin

Week 16: Will you remember to call an object complement a noun?

Good evening! I hope I can remember everything we covered today in EEL and IEW. But before I do, I want to say how thankful I am for each mom and each student and each family represented in our class. Spending two hours with you each week is a tremendous privilege and opportunity. I don't know whether God is concrete or abstract, or if he's singular, plural or collective, but I DO know he is very, very good to me through all of you! What wonderful conversation homeschooling freely affords us!

First, I did not get to the second half of our verb anatomy during EEL time today. I will diligently endeavor to get there next week.

Instead, I introduced and invested time in our fifth sentence pattern: Subject-Verb transitive-Direct Object- Object Complement Noun, otherwise known as S-Vt-DO-OCN.

An object complement noun follows a direct object and names or describes it as a direct result of the action verb. Here are some examples:

• God called the light day. (DAY names the light.)


• He called the darkness night. (NIGHT names the darkness.)


• We elected her president. (PRESIDENT describes her.)


• Do you consider chicken nuggets a food group? (FOOD GROUP names nuggets.)

Next, using "God called the light day," we completed Tasks 1-6 on our Analytical Task Sheet. The students hung with all six tasks extremely well. Good for them! The wonderful thing about the ATS (sounds kind of like a fraternity name, huh?) is that you can jump in and employ it for both beginning students and advanced students by tailoring it to the individual level.

At home this week, try to take the lesson's sample sentences and drill them out through all six tasks. You might be surprised and pleased with how far you can progress. If the OCN sentence pattern is too difficult, use an S-Vi or an S-Vl-PN.

I am also excited about our IEW assignment for the week. We introduced a one-week assignment, Lesson 22, on rewriting the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution and using transitional words and phrases to improve the flow. I distributed the transitional words sheet from the IEW Resource Notebook, so encourage your student to use it to improve their writing. One strong note: They will need your help understanding the language of the Preamble in order to complete their key word outlines and the rewrite. You'll need to carve out "conversation time," whether it's during your regular Foundations day or during your Essentials time, to discuss these big words and the even larger ideas they convey.

Finally, I applaud those students who read from their Declaration of Independence papers today. I am eager to read entire reports at home this week and hear next week from those not able to read today. Keep working hard to home to produce quality work!

Mrs. Erin

Week 15: Can you find me an indirect object yet?

Morning, everyone. Sorry for posting later than usual. I trust you all made progress yesterday without me! :)

In EEL on Tuesday, I introduced verb forms using the verb "have." When we talk about verb forms, we are referring to the combination of a verb's principal parts with the appropriate helping verbs to express when action takes place. Each form -- simple, perfect, progressive, perfect progressive -- occurs in past, present and future tense. Essentially, you end up with 12 different combinations, each of which you can drill out in 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural.

Although this sounds confusing, there's actually a simple formula for each form, and our charts do an excellent job of demonstrating how to "construct" each one. Because each form repeats the same patterns over and over, the kids often catch on to it faster than you'd think. So if you have time, give it a try this week. I only covered the simple and perfect forms on Tuesday; I'll overview the last two next week. I would recommend to parents that you look over this information by yourself first. Start on page 446 with Chart BB.

The other new information for Week 15 is Tasks 5 and 6 for your Analytical Task Sheets. We have informally covered Task 5, modification, before now, and I actually didn't cover it in class Tuesday. I plan to do so next week. I did, however, introduce Task 6, Quid et Quo, which means "What and Why" in Latin. Task 6 is one of my favorite EEL activities, because it incorporates everything we learn in EEL into one final ATS exercise. For a full explanation of Tasks 5 and 6, refer to the special "Analytical Tasks in Detail" section in Lesson 3 of your EEL Guide. It begins on page 49.

Also remember that you will find a master list of the guide's practice sentences on page 433 and your ATS masters on pages 435-439. After discovering on Tuesday that the basic format of the QeQ sheet does not include descriptive adjectives, I'd recommend using the detailed format only (page 439) and drilling a word out only as far as your student's understanding allows. For example, the detailed format asks for verb form, which you and your student may not yet understand. My advice is just skip that part, knowing you'll get to it later! Finally, those of you who purchased the laminated Trivium Tables, remember that the QeQ is included.

Now, for those of you with first-year EEL students who will be with me again next year, which is most of our class, you may want to focus your efforts on previous material. We are reaching the point in the year where new material is more advanced, and at home, you may need to stay simple. It's important to me that you teach to the level of your child's understanding and not try to keep up with every little new thing. Because every sentence begins with the foundational subject and verb, during class, there will ALWAYS be something your student can identify in EVERY sentence. And it's good for the newer students to follow along as our more advanced students keep up with the harder ideas. But at home, you may need to stick with simple and compound sentences and only identify nouns as common or proper and verbs as past, present or future on the QeQ. That's perfectly okay. Both you and your students will have time and opportunity to dig deeper next year.

Finally for EEL, this is our last week with the indirect object sentence pattern. Hopefully you've become comfortable identifying them in sentences. Next week we'll move on to object complement nouns! Whew! That's a lot of information. Thanks for reading!

IEW is much simpler. We introduced dramatic hook openers, and the students need to add a hook opener and closing sentence to their Declaration of Independence research reports. They should also revise and dress up their reports and complete a bibliography and the final checklist. I will try to allow as much reading time as possible in class next week, but I know we won't get to every student. In future weeks, when we do not have papers due, I'll plan to give them the option of reading from this or another assignment.

Please let me know if you have questions. Have a safe, healthy and restful week working together!

Erin

Week 14: Give your students a thank you from me!

Good morning. The children behaved like angels yesterday, didn't they? Please tell them I said THANK YOU!

At home this week, spend your EEL time continuing to familiarize yourselves with complex sentences, subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, and indirect objects. Also devote a little practice to active and passive voice verbs. The lesson in the EEL guide this week is excellent, so use it as much as you can.

Next week, we will introduce Tasks 5 and 6 from our ATS. What fun! I'd also like to start discussing verb forms if time allows. If not, I'll probably assign it as an admission ticket.

For IEW, your assignment is to complete your key word outlines, fused outline and rough draft paragraph for Topic C, the contents of the declaration. I accidentally photocopied the front of the lesson page on both sides, so you are without your key word outline templates; however, a piece of notebook paper should suffice. I also handed out in class yesterday the rules and worksheets for colons and semicolons from the IEW Resource Notebook. Try to complete these worksheets at home this week; they are good practice. I will bring sheet protectors for them next week. I didn't have 40 left, so I am ordering more.

Finally, I sent home the admission ticket -- another page from the IEW Resource Notebook that lets them unscramble words. They can return it to me next week.

Have a great week studying and writing. Please let me know if I can assist you.

Erin

Week 13: When we add a dependent clause, our sentence becomes complex.

I must say, only my friends and students at our beloved classical group made today worth venturing outside into this frigid air! Brrrr! It's this time of year when I'm especially glad the Lord planted me no further north than North Carolina.

We introduced a number of new ideas during both EEL and IEW this afternoon. Here's the rundown:

• S-Vt-IO-DO (Subject-Verb transitive-Indirect Object-Direct Object): This fifth of our seven sentence patterns adds an indirect object into the mix. The worksheet I completed in class with the kids, combined with Lesson 13 in the EEL guide OR memory work and charts OR Trivium Tables, tells you everything you need to know about identifying IOs and provides loads of sentences to label and diagram.



• Complex sentences: Take a simple sentence, add a dependent clause beginning with either a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun, and -- voila! -- you have a complex sentence. Again, we explored this new sentence structure with a worksheet in class that should've gone home with your student. Reviewing it along with the guide, etc., should provide ample practice. I ran out of time to demonstrate how to diagram -- I'll cover it next week. :)



• Fused Outlines from Key Word Notes: In IEW, we began a three-week research report on the Declaration of Independence. This assignment picks up where we left off in the fall by showing the students how to select and outline multiple topics from multiple source texts. Our end result will be a three-paragraph report. This week's assignment is to take notes, complete fused outlines, and write rough draft paragraphs for the first two topics: conflict between America and Britain (Topic A) and Congress' decision to declare freedom (Topic B). The lesson lays out the process perfectly, but I'd suggest the following schedule: On Wednesday, look over the lesson together and read aloud the three source texts. Identify in each source text which topic each paragraph addresses. Then complete the key word notes and fused outline for Topic A. On Thursday, write the Topic A rough draft paragraph. On Friday, complete the key word notes and fused outline for Topic B. Finally, on Monday, write the Topic B rough draft paragraph.

Now, before you panic over all this new information, remember that we have three weeks to focus on indirect objects, seven weeks to master the complex sentence structure with its subordinating conjunctions and relative pronouns, and three weeks for the research report. In fact, for all 12 weeks of IEW, I believe we only have five papers due. So it's spread out. Also take into consideration once again the fact that most of our EEL students will glean from the exact same 24 weeks again next year.

Have a lovely week. Please let me know if you have questions.

Erin

Week 11: Write, review, and reflect.

Good morning. I love your bunch of children. After 11 weeks together, I feel like I'm finally discovering their uniqueness. It's amazing to stand in front of them and recognize our future leaders. They are the next generation for Jesus. I'm eager to see how He's going to use them here and around the world!

During class yesterday, we flipped our usual schedule and completed IEW first. Writing skills continue to sharpen, and I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to the students read. Next semester I am going to stress presentation -- reading loudly and clearly and making eye contact with the audience -- at a higher level. I may engage moms' help in that. Just so you know... :)

This week's assignment is to complete the Boston Tea Party stories. I know a couple of you are starting from scratch, so refer back to last week's lesson and post for those notes. For the rest, your student needs to add dress-ups, revise and polish, complete the final checklist, and practice reading aloud. The new dress-ups are simile and metaphor, which we discussed at length during class yesterday, and also "3SSS" -- three short staccato sentences -- which we covered briefly.

When you get to it, you'll see that dialogue is also a new option on the decorations checklist. IEW introduces it in Lesson 11, which we skipped. I intended to talk about it in class yesterday but ran out of time. If you can, go over the punctuation and capitalization rules for dialogue at home this week and encourage its incorporation into the tea party story. Remember to teach that a new paragraph is required every time the speaker changes. Students often forget this.

Although I have a poetry lesson scheduled -- haiku, so fun! -- we will spend the majority of our IEW time next week reading these stories. If any students want to dress the part (colonists, Indians, English soldiers, etc.), bring it on!

The next two weeks of EEL consist of review and, if you'll take the opportunity, what I'll call "reflection." During class yesterday, the sentences we drilled were examples of simile and metaphor in Bible verses. I believe these sentences, so many of which you can find in Proverbs, provide super learning opportunity with our kids on so many levels.

For example, we examined the sentence "The mouth of the righteous is a fountain of life." First, it's a simple, declarative, S-Vl-PN sentence that includes prepositional phrases, so there's our EEL grammar. Second, it employs metaphor, so there's our IEW writing style. Third, it uses that metaphor to illustrate godly wisdom -- created things to explain spiritual principles, the visible to demonstrate the invisible -- and thus we can take time to dialog and reflect with our children on the meaning and application of the verse. When our school time touches both the head and the heart, we're at least doubling the benefit, right? :) Only the Lord knows what He will build on the foundations we lay, but what a privilege we have as homeschooling moms to build both knowledge and godliness into our children. So take time to reflect together these next two weeks.

Finally, I talked with the kids yesterday about redeeming tickets next week for our Gilded Coupon Campaign. Remember that we give what we've earned in the fall and receive what we've earned in the spring. Here's how this semester's "giving" will work:

• Each ticket is worth 25 cents. Students have had the chance to earn up to 24 tickets -- one Admission Ticket and one writing assignment ticket per week. So they will have been able to earn up to $6.


• I will match what they've earned, which could double them to $12.


• Each student has the opportunity to give out of his or her own pocket. It could be 50 cents, or it could be $10.


• I have two sponsors who will match what each student gives, thus tripling the "out of pocket" donation. So, for example, if a student decides to give $4, it will become $12.


• SO, say a student has 20 tickets. The 20 tickets would be worth $5, and I'd match it, so it becomes $10. Then the student decides to donate $5, and the sponsors triple it to $15. All total, the student's donation becomes $25.


• My goal here is for the kids to tangibly see how God can take their "small" effort and multiply it for His purposes.

I've decided that this year's donation will go to Wycliffe Bible Translators on behalf of the Knott family, who are home with us on furlough this fall and part of our Foundations, Essentials and Challenge programs at Westside. This spring, they will return to the field and begin oral Bible story translation for a population where less than 2% have heard the name of Jesus. I love the idea that the time our kids have spent studying the English language will enable us to invest in translating God's story into another people's language!

Please let me know if you have questions. Have a wonderful week together. See you Tuesday for the semester's final hurrah!

Erin

Week 10: Oh my! Hasn't this semester been quick?

Do you remember how the Bible tells us there is nothing new under the sun? Well, there is nothing new in Essentials for the rest of the semester! Yesterday's introduction of the S-Vl-PA sentence pattern and in-depth look at adjectives marks the spot where we stop til January. Sometime this week, pause to consider what we've learned thus far by reading the "Words of Encouragement" in the guide on page 166. Then pat yourself on the back, give your student a congratulatory hug -- and settle in for some review time!

The S-Vl-PA sentence pattern is explained well in the EEL guide, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time repeating good information. The adjectives chart is thorough, too. Once you grow familiar with it, I'd suggest working through a children's book to locate adjectives and dialogue through whether they are descriptive, limiting or possessive. You can also practice identifying prepositional phrases as adjectival (which one? what kind? how many? whose?) or adverbial (how? when? where? why? to what extent?).

We began a two-week narrative story assignment on the Boston Tea Party during IEW. The students have two options: They can retell the story as written -- same characters and events with their brainstorming ideas included -- OR they can change or add additional characters and even change the circumstances of the event. If they make changes, they need to keep the basic storyline of children as main characters who plot to protest or "overthrow" unfair rules or laws. AND they need to develop the the IEW story sequence requirements before they begin writing. (Hint: Parents, get involved early on this.) For example, Maggie, when she wrote this story three years ago, decided to write about girls, who were disguised as boys, storming a ship to protest the queen's requirement that all girls wear petticoats at all times. Where did she get the idea? To this day, I don't know. I was quite skeptical, but she was excited about it and developed a working storyline, so I let her do it. It turned out to be one of her best IEW papers.

Students are responsible for rough drafts next week that incorporate all of the brainstorming assigned. Finals will be due the following week. Since it's our last week of the semester, we'll spend more time reading aloud.

Enjoy the fall weather and each other.

Week 9: My students are such diligent workers.

Good evening. We finally moved forward with a new sentence pattern today. The students are definitely holding their own. What little sponges they are with new information. You've got to love it!

Tackle that new pattern at home: S-Vl-PN, which means "Subject-Verb Linking-Predicate Nominative." If they don't yet know them, begin memorizing the list of linking verbs. The primary way to master this sentence pattern is through the "aha!" recognition of that linking verb and the following noun that can rename or replace the subject noun. Here are some examples:

The sun is a planet.
Whales are mammals.
I am a teacher.
You are a parent.
They are children.
Jesus is God.

Once you familiarize yourselves with the pattern, dress them up with the adverbs, interjections and different kinds of nouns or prepositional phrases we've learned, then try to modify the sentence purposes. Diagram some, too, using your task sheets. Don't stress. Just go at the pace comfortable for your family, and try to enjoy being together while learning together. I know some days it's a challenge.... :) But God is a miracle worker! The Richardson household can testify!

For IEW, we are just writing one paragraph on the French and Indian War. We narrowed the five paragraph topics to three general topics (see the front lesson page) during class. This should help them choose 1-2 facts and the associated key words from each paragraph to include on their outlines. Caution: Your student may find it extremely difficult to narrow five paragraphs into a single summary graph. Point them back to the beginning of the lesson, which tells them to choose interesting or important information and ignore the rest! However, also explain that since they are summarizing, the scope of their paragraph should be broad. It should include background information (paragraphs 1 and 2), what happened during the war (graphs 3 and 4), and what the results were (paragraph 5). Abbreviations will really help on their key word outlines. For example, use "Fr." for France or the French, "Eng." for England or the English, and "N.A." for North America. Remember, too, that numbers are free, so they can include dates and it doesn't count toward their 3-4 key words per line.

Please let me know if you have questions. Happy writing!

Mrs. Erin

Week 8: At home, study prepositional phrases.

What delightful children you are raising! I am loving the papers they are writing in IEW, and they are picking up the EEL concepts well, too. Sharp, sharp, sharp!

During our EEL time yesterday, we focused on prepositional phrases. I used a stool as a visual example and placed myself beside the stool, atop the stool, behind the stool, in front of the stool, beneath the stool, etc. You can do this at home with any object, or you can pull a Dr. Seuss book off the shelf -- they are usually loaded with prepositional phrases, so have fun searching them out.

Use your memory work to memorize the definition of a preposition, and use either the EEL chart or the IEW list to familiarize yourselves with the preposition lists. Older students should try to identify prepositional phrases as adverbial or adjectival. But please know we'll be doing that in class all year long because we have to decide where to place the phrases on our sentence diagrams.

One vastly important note about prepositions -- they do not stand alone. They are always the first word of a prepositional phrase and thus always have an object. Many words on the preposition list can function as stand-alone adverbs, which can be tricky. For instance, if I say, "The bear crawled over," the word over is an adverb that tells me where the bear crawled. But if I say, "The bear crawled over the fallen log," over is a preposition and log is the object of the preposition, and the entire phrase is adverbial because it again tells where.

We have one more week to devote to compound S-Vt-DO sentences. So, during your study time, take two or more simple sentences of this pattern, add a FANBOYS to make them compound, then dress them up with prepositional phrases, adverbs, appositives, interjections, nouns of direct address -- anything we've studied so far -- and diagram as much as you can! If you hit a wall because you've created a larger sentence than you know how to diagram, don't worry. Go as far as you can and celebrate what you've already accomplished. :)

During our diagramming time yesterday, I handed out a green sheet titled "Simple Steps." This is a Q&A, similar to the one in the guide, that takes you through the tasks of identifying our sentence parts. However, this one is my own version. I put it together for Maggie a few years back. You are not required to use it, but here's why I like it. The EEL tasks direct us to identify the subject and verb first. I start in a different place -- with prepositional phrases, then conjunctions -- in order to isolate the main body of our sentence. THEN we go after our subject and verb. I believe, as the sentences become longer and more complex, it's easier to locate our main parts if we have all the "extras" set aside with parentheses. So see if you like it, but again, it's not required. I'll try to remember the extra copies next week for those who asked.

Moving at last onto IEW, the students are responsible for polishing their rough draft paragraphs and adding an introductory statement and a final clincher to their three-paragraph report on caring for the sick during colonial times. I believe they all understood this in class, and an example to follow is stapled to their assignment page.

We are two-thirds of the way through our semester. Hard to believe, isn't it? Y'all are doing great! Have a fantastic week. Please let me know if you have questions.

Erin

Week 7: Students, study adverbs, appositives, and nouns of direct address diligently.

Sorry for the delayed post. We introduced an abundance of new information during EEL yesterday and a new way of key word outlining source texts during IEW. Y'all have a fun and full week of learning ahead at home!

For EEL, the guide does a superb job describing the imperative sentence pattern with S-Vt-DO, nouns of direct address, appositives, and adverbs. Spend time working with all of those using the guide and the nouns and adverbs charts. The guide also touches on verb mood, so those who have advanced students may want to identify the difference between indicative and imperative mood as well. It's not difficult to grasp.

Your IEW assignment introduces the idea and structure of topical paragraphs. We are supposed to take information that is scattered throughout a source text and arrange it into three topical paragraphs that contain topic sentences, details and clinchers. This structure is outlined in the IEW Resouce Guide (the free online download) and will eventually become a five-paragraph report for us that utilizes an introductory paragraph, three body paragraphs and a conclusion graph. I'd like for y'all to look over this structure with them and emphasize to the students how important the pattern is here. They will use it over and over and over again throughout their academic careers, and I believe it serves to help them organize their thoughts when speaking as well. The idea of writing a topic sentence, supporting it with details and clinching it with a final sentence that reflects and repeats key words from the topic sentence gives them a basic skeleton to fall back on time and time again.

Before they choose which facts they want to include in their outlines, I suggested yesterday that they go through the source text and underline all the doctor facts in one color, the superstition facts in another color, then the medicine facts in yet another color. Then let them choose the five to seven facts they find most interesting or most important regarding each topic.

If y'all have questions, let me know. Only the three rough draft paragraphs are due next week. Finals will be due the following week.

Finally, thanks to everyone for their patience and participation with pictures yesterday. I hope we got some great shots of our handsome brood!

Erin

Week 6: We know direct objects now!

Good evening! We covered so much ground today in both EEL and IEW, and I want to caution parents: Take a deep breath and realize that although we introduced a lot of new information, we have plenty of time in the coming weeks to learn it.

The EEL sentence focus for the week is compound declarative and exclamatory Subject-Verb transitive-Direct Object sentences. First, we will spend the rest of the semester -- six more weeks -- on compound sentences. This allows ample time to understand the concept and memorize the coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) that help to form this sentence structure. Second, we will devote an additional two weeks after this week to our S-Vt-DO sentence pattern. You'll have opportunity after opportunity to teach and review, so be patient with yourselves and your students.

Work on your memory work this week, and spend your EEL time creating compound sentences from simple sentences by taking two simple sentences and using a FANBOYS to combine the two. Try to use a combination of S-Vi and S-Vt-DO sentences.

In contrasting the two sentence patterns, explain as many times as needed that intransitive verbs DO NOT transfer any action and that transitive verbs DO transfer action to a person, place or thing in the predicate of the sentence. We call that noun receiving the action a DIRECT OBJECT. Put another way, intransitive verbs have no answer to the question "Subject verb what?" but transitive verbs always have an answer to that question. Consider the two following sentences:

The cat chased.

• Who or what is the sentence about? Cat


• What did the cat do? Chased


• Can we answer "The cat chased what?" No


• So, "chased" is intransitive, and our sentence pattern is S-Vi.

The cat chased mice.

• Who or what is the sentence about? Cat


• What did the cat do? Chased


• Can we answer "The cat chased what?" Yes, mice


• So, "chased" is transitive. The mice are receiving the verb's action, and our sentence pattern is S-Vt-DO.

We discussed coordinating conjunctions (FANBOYS) during class, but I did not touch on subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns or conjunctive adverbs as mentioned in the EEL guide. I will circle back to these later as our sentences include them. If you have an advanced student and want or need to cover these now, please do. But for most of our class, I believe FANBOYS is sufficient for the week. What I would like you to focus on is the fact that FANBOYS can join words, phrases or clauses (both independent and dependent). Examples are pretty easy to find. Pick a paragraph from a book, look together for FANBOYS, and then determine together if they join words, phrases or clauses. But incase you're drawing a blank, here's examples of each:

• Words -- apples, oranges OR pears


• Words -- boys AND girls


• Phrases -- over the river AND through the woods


• Phrases -- above the ocean BUT beneath the sky


• Clauses -- The wind blew, SO the kite soared.


• Clauses -- The marshmallows toasted, FOR the fire crackled.

Just FYI, the guide uses Charts G and H to introduce compound sentences and conjunctions. Please look over them with your student, and use them where you find them helpful.

During IEW, we started what will be an ongoing discussion of comma rules. They put into their notebooks a page of IEW's comma rules. Use these as guidelines, knowing there are exceptions here and there you will have to explain. For practice, I distributed a comma rules worksheet you can complete at home this week if desired. We also introduced prepositional phrase openers, and I directed them to a prepositions list at the front of their style charts. Those for whom prepositional phrases are still somewhat vague can refer to this list for now. We will cover prepositions in depth in, I believe, two weeks during EEL.

Your IEW task is to complete your three-paragraph story of the Mayflower. First you'll want to add prepositional phrase openers and additional five senses adjectives. Then you'll want to revise and complete your final checklists. When they write their final drafts, please use the MLA style and just check off where the checklist says "Composition is neat and double-spaced with name."

Finally, I'd really love for you to plan a time at home for your student to read his or her paper aloud to the family. First, it provides practice. Second, I'm finding it extremely difficult with 18 students to let everyone read as often as I'd like. I really hate for no one to hear what they've written after they devote so much time and effort. The quality and creativity of their writing is outstanding, so please make time for them to read aloud at home!

Thank you for taking the time to read all of this and investing in your children this week. See you next Tuesday.

Erin

Week 5: Can you question?

EEL families,

Today flew by as we learned how to change declarative sentences to interrogatives during our EEL time and talked in IEW about how to take a BORING story and rewrite it in an exciting and intriguing way. The students impressed me with their paragraphs on Jamestown; I'm eager to hear the rest next week.

At home this week, spend your EEL time reviewing memory work and charts and dialoging through simple S-Vi sentences that morph from declarative to exclamatory to imperative to interrogative. Then have fun diagramming them! Pay close attention to the three different ways we can make a sentence interrogative:

• Add a helping verb: "The dog eats" becomes "Did the dog eat?"



• Replace the subject noun with an interrogative subject pronoun: "The dog eats" becomes "Who ate?"



• Change your voice inflection: "The dog eats" remains "The dog eats?" but we change our voice tones to indicate we're asking a question.

Also remember that the subject of an imperative sentence is always what we call "implied you." By week's end, you will want to have spent time working with simple S-Vi sentences of all four sentence purposes. Next week, we finally get to move on to our second sentence pattern: S-Vt-DO. Yeah!

Our IEW assignment is to begin writing a three-paragraph story about the Mayflower. The final polished product will take us two weeks, but at home between now and next Tuesday, you are responsible for the following:

• three key word outlines,



• brainstorming quality verbs, -ly words, five senses adjectives and feelings,



• and three rough draft paragraphs.

I encouraged the kids today to consider how they can use words to create scenes and evoke images in their readers' or listeners' minds of the events happening in their stories. I can't wait to hear what they come up with! Their creativity, I suspect, is boundless. :)

Please let me know if you have questions. Thank you for sharing time in community with me today. It's a privilege to be with you and your children!

Erin

Week 4: Wow! Diagramming fun begins!

It sounds from Tina as if Essentials proceeded wonderfully without me today! She said the students were perfectly behaved, so thank you to all! Thanks, too, to Amy for holding Will so Tina could teach without distraction. We are having a nice week together at the beach. Strangely, we're more caught up on school work than we would be at home. A relaxing feeling, to say the least.

I'm sure Tina explained and demonstrated interjections, simple imperative S-Vi sentences, and diagramming thoroughly. Work through a few sentences at home and review your charts this week. Next week, we move on to our second sentence pattern: S-Vt-DO. I can't wait to see the students' brains begin discerning the different sentence patterns as they are juxtaposed. It's invigorating to watch them learn.

To their IEW paragraphs, the students are adding sentence openers, a who/which clause, and a clincher-reflecting title. I am glad Tina thought to distribute "Evil Ka-Weasel" so that you could see how to label papers. Handwritten labels in the margins of typed papers are fine! You don't have to figure it out on the computer. I would, however, like for paragraphs to be formated in MLA style. The IEW resource notebook has a page on this, but I'll also include a link that gives you both written instruction and a visual image: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/. It's not difficult, and once you've done it, it's easy to replicate.

Please let me know if you have questions. I'm eager to read their paragraphs. See everyone next week.

Erin

EEL moms,

Do you remember when, in middle school, we used to write notes to our friends while we were bored during class and we would sign them "LLL" for "Longer Letter Later"? Well, I'm going to write short tonight, and if needed, I'll post a "LLL" tomorrow! My brain's weary...

Your main EEL focus this week is nouns and pronouns and the Analytical Task Sheet #1-3. Incorporate nouns and pronouns by exploring the charts together that we put in the notebooks today (They're also on your Trivium Table.) and "applying" what you discover to whatever you're doing this week. Wherever you go, look for the opportunity to discuss how you could replace a noun with a pronoun. Take the time to identify nouns as proper or common, singular or plural, concrete or abstract, etc. Try to decide whether a pronoun is nominative or objective or possessive, etc. An ongoing noun and pronoun conversation is the goal. As far as the ATS, dictate very simple sentences two or three times and work through steps 1 through 3. Examples would be "The fox jumps," or "The doors close," or "On Tuesdays, Essentials meets."

For IEW, we began a two-week assignment to write a single paragraph report on Jamestown. We completed our key word outline in class. Next, the students need to brainstorm adjectives, verbs and adverbs before writing a rough draft. I'd begin tomorrow by covering up the source text and asking them to "retell" the source text paragraph using their key word outline. We did this in class today, but it would be great for them to do it again. Then brainstorm dress-ups. On Thursday and Friday, write the rough draft. Monday, complete the rough draft checklist. The rough draft does not need to be turned in on Tuesday.

Tina Gaines is subbing for me next week. She's wonderful, and I'm sure you'll appreciate the different style she brings to the front of the class!

I'll be available through phone and email if you have questions. See you in two weeks.

Erin