Week 13: I gave you Complex Structure and Indirect Objects, while I was teaching Subordinate Clauses. S/Vt- - -(S/Vt/DO) /IO/DO

Whew!  What a whirlwind of new information.  Your Our Mother Tongue lessons will really help you this week because they will hammer away the information we learned.

Class Overview

Today we delved deep into new information.  We added the sentence structure, S/Vt/IO/DO and introduced complex sentences.

Indirect Object

Important to remember about the IO

1) Comes between the Vt and DO
2) Answers the question (Vt) + (DO) . . . to or for whom or what?

Examples:

Lisa gave Hank a shoe.
Gave (Vt) + shoe (DO) . . . to or for whom or what? Answer = Hank (IO)

The present gave me joy!
Gave + joy ... to whom = me

To see a diagram of the S/Vt/IO/DO, please look below at the Complex, S/Vt/IO/DO diagram.

Complex Sentence

Simple sentence = independent clause
Compound sentence = independent clause + independent clause
Complex sentence = independent clause + dependent (subordinate) clause


Dependent (subordinate) Clause vs. Phrase

Dependent clauses and phrases both cannot stand alone in a sentence.  The big difference is that a dependent clause will have both a subject and a verb.   The phrase will not.

While I wandered the desert . . .
In the desert . . .

The first is a clause with a subject (I) and a verb (wandered).
The second is a prepositional phrase and has no S/V.


Adjectival vs. Adverbial Subordinate Clauses

Adjectival subordinate clauses are those clauses that are used as an adjective in a sentence.
When trying to determine whether a clause is adjectival, go to the questions that you memorized to determine if a word is an adjective (What kind? How many? Which? Whose?)  If the clause answers one of these questions, it is adjectival.

Another quick way to identify whether a clause is adjectival is to see whether it begins with a relative pronoun (have to be memorized).  The list of relative pronouns is in the memory work.  It begins with the word who.  As a possible memory help, I always think of describing a relative, who is a who (a person).  The word describing helps me think of adjective.

These are already familiar to us through IEW in the Who/Which clauses.

The adverbial clause works the same way, except it answers the adverb questions, and the adverbial clause begins with subordinating conjunctions (www.asia.wub).


The Subordinate Clause and Comma Use

In most sentences, the subordinate clause will be separated by commas.  The exception is when the clause is necessary to the meaning of the noun it modifies.

The family that lives around the corner has eight kids.

We will be practicing this in class.

Try to find the subordinate (dependent) clauses in the following sentences. I didn't put in commas.

When we took a break from school for Christmas I forgot all my memory work.
We love because he first loved us.
My parents who like to surprise my sisters and me won't tell us where we are going for our family vacation.

Diagramming a Subordinate Clause (and S/Vt/IO/DO)

The teacher, who read the class a story, sent me a recording.

We follow the diagram examples from the Essentials guide.  Most sentence diagramming sources prescribe a different way of diagramming the IO.  Please feel free to choose one and stick with it.  We will be using the way I taught it in class.  The important thing is that the kids are able to identify the usage in the sentences.  Thanks, Rhonda, for catching this!

Grammar (Drill)

Memorize this week's memory work.

Review the questions used to determine if a word (or clause) is an adverb or an adjective. (Charts I, L)

Dialectic (Understanding)

Work through the task sheet to diagram some S/Vt/IO/DO sentences.  Come up with three or four per day that fit the pattern then task one of them.  Here are some to get you started.

I bought my friend a birthday gift.

The boy read his sister a book.

Mom baked the kids a cake.

The pirates gave the prisoners a choice between being marooned or walking the plank.

Lucky gave me the pot of gold from the end of the rainbow.

Next, work through some complex sentences.  If this is new to the student, please just drill the idea that a subordinate clause + and independent clause = complex sentence.  Next, get to what a subordinate clause is.

Have fun!  See you next week!

Yesterday in class, there were Mischievous Monkeys and Marshmallow-Cat-Eating Dogs!

First, I would like to thank all of you who gave me such lovely gifts. It was so thoughtful. It felt like early Christmas. Hugs! Thanks!


Class Overview

Review, review, review!

Yesterday we reviewed verbs and dressed up sentences with modifiers, but I hope that today and tomorrow the only reviewing you do is the final checklist for Thanksgiving shopping and the only dressing up you do is looking presentable for well-loved relatives, well, that and dressing up a pile of mashed potatoes with gravy.

Wow! All that was one sentence.

Have a marvelous Thanksgiving and Christmas! God bless you as you travel and gather with family tomorrow.

Week 11: Review is productive. S/Vl/PA

Thank you for switching around the way we did class today so that I could get back to my sick kiddos. It really helped to be gone only for an hour.  Thanks, Tina and Cynthia, for being so flexible, and thanks, moms, for enduring a combined class two weeks in a row.  Hopefully the crud will move on and we will be able to get back to normal next week.

Class Overview

Review!  We began with a pop quiz of sorts.  I pulled out the memory work cards to find out how much memory work has been mastered.  The students, of course, are at different levels of mastery.  Second and third year students and Memory Masters have an advantage because they have been exposed to the information more, but all students should have been somewhat familiar with the terms.

Moms, if you do nothing else, drill memory work.  This is priority number one for making headway in EEL.

Next, we worked through a few Charlie Brown sentences from the beloved Pig Pen.  Click here to get the complete document (with answers, Moms).  It really is quite a bit harder to be given a sentence and told to identify the structure rather than working from a given structure and knowing that the sentence probably fits that pattern.

Fianally, we worked through Task 5 on the task sheet.  I was thrilled to be able to go this far in tasking; the review week lends to more time for this exercise.  Definitely begin integrating Task 5 in with your task sheets this week.  Our sentence this week was Sarah, my neighbor, became bold, and Macy remained shy. (SN, (appositive)/Vl/PA, cc, SN/Vl/PA)

Grammar

Drill memory work.
Review charts.

Dialectic

Use the task sheets, through task five, to work through sentences.
Identify sentence patterns using the Pig Pen worksheet. This resource only uses the first four sentence structures that we have already covered.  Click the link above, or copy the following web address in your browser to download the document.
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/75809442/Week11%20Pig%20Pen%20and%20sentence%20structures.pdf

If you would rather, use some of these sample sentences:
My dad laughed loudly.
God's promise was a rainbow. (Well, I know that the actual promise wasn't the rainbow, but work with me for the sake of sentence structure).
My mother, Cindy, loves me and cares for me.
Seth felt happy.
The boy on the bike rode through town, but I stayed on the playground.
Tom tricked his friends, and they whitewashed the fence.
A peacock is a fancy bird.
The football team's mascot was not a tiger.
I eat hot dogs, but she likes tacos.
Jeremy and Nathan wrote the sentence.

Moms and students, if you get stuck please refer to the Simple Steps for Solving Sentences sheet in the student notebook (toward back of the EEL portion, blue/green sheet).  It will lead you through the right questions to determine things like DO, PA, and PN.

If you are still stuck on a sentence you can email me.  We will work through it together and ask the right questions to determine the answer.  This is all about the thinking and analyzing process that leads to truth (even if Macy remains shy).

In closing, I would like to share my favorite S/Vl/PN sentence.

God is love!
Can I switch them?
Love is God!
Yes, I can. He doesn't have love--He is love!  So, the only way we can love others is to have Him move in us.  What a glorious thought.  Everything good and pleasant comes from who He is.

Week 10: Class was lovely, and my students remain clever.

Class Overview

Grammar Rule

We really nailed the who/which clause (7a,b  pp. 74-75).  These clauses help add more detail to a sentence and can combine two short sentences into one.  They are set off by commas.  If the clause is removed, the remaining words should still be a complete sentence.  Also, we talked about the fact that an invisible who/which can sometimes be mistaken for an appositive and that, in those instances, an argument can be made for going either way.

Adjectives

We looked at Chart L, Adjectives.  On this chart, as on all charts, the gray boxes are the most important to master.  These provide the definition: adjectives modify a noun or pronoun by describing, qualifying or limiting.  And the gray boxes also tell us the most important thing to remember about adjectives, that they answer the questions, 

What kind? 

How many? 

Which? 

Whose?

Drill these questions! 

We answered these questions by modifying the word cat.  What kind? tabby cat, How many? all cats, Which? the sleepy cat, Whose? Jane's cat

S/Vl/PA

This week, we continued to focus on compound, declarative sentences, but we introduced a new sentence pattern, S/Vl/PA.

We learned that a predicate adjective can modify or describe the subject, and a linking verb is never an action verb.  Those are the two key components to understanding the S/Vl/PA pattern.

The questions that you need to ask to identify an S/Vl/PA are...
1) Who or what is this sentence about?  Answer: subject
2) What is that subject doing? action? being?  Answer: verb
3) Now ask, could the verb be linking? (from memorized list and used as state of being?)
4) Does an adjective that describes or modifies the subject follow the linking verb?
Answer: S/Vl/PA

We looked at the example The rose is red, and then substituted other linking verbs from the list to show how a predicate adjective describes or modifies the subject.  So, The rose is red, became, The rose...smells beautiful, became wilted, feels soft, grows limp.  Notice that all the verbs could be replaced with the word is. This demonstrates that the linking verb remains a state of being, not an action.

Next, we talked about the pitfall of mistaking action verbs for linking verbs (or vice versa).
The rose smells beautiful. (State of being, could be The rose is beautiful.) S/Vl/PA
She smells the rose. (Action verb, could not be She is the rose.) S/Vt/DO

We also spent some time using the task sheet to work the sentence, Nathan feels happy, and Jenny seems content.  This sentence is a compound, S/Vl/PA.  The line between the linking verb and predicate adjective is just like the predicate nominative line. It slants back toward the subject.

I neglected to diagram other adjectives in a sentence, but will do that next week.  They go on a slanted line just like adverbs, except they go under the word that they modify.

Grammar

Drill memory work.
Memorize the questions used to identify adjectives.
Memorizing the linking verbs.  There is a song to help on the sidebar of this blog. This will make identifying S/Vl/PN and S/Vl/PA easier.  Especially focus on the "to be" verbs (am, are, is, was, were, being, been).
Review charts.

Dialectic

Use the task sheets to work through sentences.

Sample sentences
The flowers smell lovely, and the bride looks beautiful.
The day remains sunny, though the forecast is dreary.
Greensboro is small, but North Carolina is large.
Voting is responsible, yet it can feel challenging.
Books are thrilling, and reading is fun.
The candy was yummy, and Mom remains happy.
The shiny apple looked tasty, yet it was rotten on the inside.

Week 9: The class is a joy, and understanding is a delight.

Class Overview

Grammar Rule

We covered the rest of the comma rules (1b,c,d,  pp. 56-58).  These include some review of adding a comma before the coordinating conjunction in a compound sentence, the comma that comes after an introductory prepositional phrase or series of prepositional phrases, and the sentence interrupter that is set off by commas.

S/Vl/PN

This week, we continued to focus on compound, declarative sentences, but we introduced a new sentence pattern, S/Vl/PN.

We learned that a predicate nominative can replace or rename the subject, and a linking verb is never an action verb.  Those are the two key components to understanding the S/Vl/PN pattern.

The questions that you need to ask to identify an S/Vl/PN are...
1) Who or what is this sentence about?  Answer: subject
2) What is that subject doing? action? being?  Answer: verb
3) Now ask, verb + who/what?  Answer: direct object?
4) Is the verb a linking verb (memorize list or look for state of being instead of action), and can the direct object replace the subject?  If yes to both, it is not an S/Vt/DO.  It is an S/Vl/PN.

We looked at the example A bluejay is a bird, and talked about the fact that it can be turned around to say A bird is a bluejay and still makes sense.  God is love.  Love is God.  Sonya is a girl.  A girl is Sonya.  My favorite is chicken.  Chicken is my favorite.  New York is a city.  A city is New York.

For advanced students, we covered the fact that a pronoun used as a PN has to be in the nominative case (subjective, the form you use when it is used as a subject) because it must be able to take the place of the subject.

It is I. (correct)  It is me. (incorrect)
The captain is he. (correct) The captain is him. (incorrect)

You could turn around The captain is he. to make it He is the captain, but you wouldn't turn around The captain is him, to make it Him is the captain.

So, kids, next time you answer the phone, you won't say, "It's me, Dad."  You'll say, "It's I, Dad." : )

We also spent some time using the task sheet to work the sentence, Tom is the captain, but Jane is the coach.  This compound, S/Vl/PN was fun to diagram.  Remember to connect the compounds at the verb and put that coordinating conjunction on the "chair".  Also, remember that the line between the linking verb and predicate nominative is just like the direct object line except that it slants back toward the subject.

Grammar

First and foremost, drill memory work.
Also, engage early in memorizing the linking verbs.  There is a song to help on the sidebar of this blog. This will make identifying S/Vl/PNs easier.  Especially focus on the "to be" verbs (am, are, is, was, were, being, been).
Review charts.

Dialectic

Dust off those task sheets and work through at least one sentence per day.  Get adventurous and flip it to the back and see if you can tackle parts or all of task 5.

Moms, remember the trick of saying subject/verb linking/article...  If you add an a, an, or the after the linking verb, the student will have to supply a noun, making it a predicate noun.  Watch out for adjectives.  We will cover predicate adjectives next week.  Try to steer clear of them until I introduce them in class.

Sample sentences

The flowers are tulips, and the ribbons are satin.
The day is Halloween, and the costume is Darth Vader.
Greensboro is our town, but North Carolina is our state.
Voting is a privilege, yet it is also a duty.
It is he, and it is I.
The candy is Snickers, and the eater is Mom.
Under the spreading tree during the heat of the day, the sleeper is the tiger.

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!

Week 7: Students, study your adverb lists, and Moms, rejoice in the goodness of God.

Class Overview

Wow! Week seven already.  Yesterday we covered so many concepts: compound imperative sentences, nouns of direct address, appositives and adverbs.  Throughout our discussion, we also reviewed how to determine whether a verb is transitive or intransitive.

Compound Imperative

First, we changed the purpose of our compound declarative sentences, making them imperative.

Megan eats Cheerios, but Ryan devours tofu.  (became) Megan, eat Cheerios, but Ryan, devour tofu.

Nouns of Direct Address

We hammered away at the fact that the subject of an imperative sentence is ALWAYS you or implied you.  So if the subject is you in our example, then restated, it could say You eat Cheerios, but You devour tofu.  Stating it this way allowed us to see that the names, added for clarification, help determine who is being addressed.  Thus, they are nouns of direct address (NDA).

Appositives

An appositive is a noun that follows another noun and explains or identifies it.

Megan, the baby, eats Cheerios.
Ryan, the eleven year old, devours tofu.

The baby and the eleven year old are our appositives.  We came up with so many examples and each student contributed a different clarifier.  Megan was a trail-hiker, a dog, an aerobics instructor, and a grandmother at different points. In my first class, Henry was a girl.  We decided it was short for Henrietta.

We also covered a few rules for appositives.  They are always separated by commas, and the appositive always follows the preceding noun.  So if we turn around the example and make it,

The baby, Megan, eats Cheerios.

Megan would now be the appositive.

Adverbs

Finally, we made it to adverbs!  We took a look at Chart I (Adverbs).  If you are new to Essentials, I told you to memorize the gray boxes, the definition of an adverb and the questions to ask when determining if a word is an adverb.  If you do nothing else this week for EEL, work on memorizing this list!  There is really no way around it, and it clears up so much muck in the diagramming process if you can pull it from your memory instead of from a page.

If you are not new to Essentials and you already have the list nailed, please work on the rest of Chart I, identifying simple, flexion, negative, affirmative and multi-word (subordinating) adverbial phrases.  Also, take a look at the degrees that an adverb can be.

We introduced all the adverb types and focused on the tricky, negative adverbs.  We said that not is not a verb.  We repeated this over and over.  Please do this with your child at home this week.  Make a game of it.  At random moments, say, "Not..." and make them finish, "is not a verb."  You can even tie it off with a nice neat bow by having them add, "It's an adverb."

We tackled the example,

My cat, Bob, can't learn tricks.

First we had to separate the contraction.

My cat, Bob, can not learn tricks.

Then we identified our subject and verb.  Subject, cat, Verb, can learn.  We talked about how not is not part of the verb.  It is the adverb.  So when we diagrammed this sentence, it looked like this.

Here is the mega diagram that we did at the end of class, incorporating our compound, imperative, verb transitive, noun of direct address and adverb elements.

Grammar (Drill)

Memorize the list of questions to determine if a word is an adverb (Chart I, gray boxes)
Review the question that you ask when determining if a verb is transitive or intransitive (verb, who or what?).
Work on memory work through week 7.
Drill Not is not a verb, it's an adverb.

Dialectic (Understanding)

Work through all elements we covered this week, incorporating them into sentences to use with the task sheet.  Here are some sample sentences for you (more in back of lesson 7 in EEL guide).

Cats rub legs, but dogs lick faces.
Tom, the bus driver, happily sings.
Sharon, don't taste the snow!
Kelly, swim a lap slowly, but Henry, run a mile quickly.

And for those of you who are diagramming gurus,

Jake, my son, unless you clean your room thoroughly, you will be eating kidney pie and liver and onions for a month.