assignments for February 26, 2008

Hello Families,

I think we had a great day of learning yesterday! Your kids may not agree with me, but it just seemed very productive. They were engaged in the activities we did--I'm proud of them! The only "cloud" hovering over the day was the absence of Luke. He was ill and we missed him.

After Bible and Latin (encourage your student to use Latin color words around your home), we have a "catch-up or misc" period. Great resources sometimes come to me after we've finished a topic. Instead of dismissing them, I'm going to use this time segment to go back and refresh our memory and use the resource. Yesterday we viewed a great animated, 30-minute DVD about Joan of Arc. Mrs. Jennifer also read a book about St. Valentine to us. (She and baby Hayden were a great help to us!)

We discussed Spain and Portugal and went in depth about Prince Henry, reading an excellent book on his life. We did a map-making activity that hopefully arrived home. These can go into their notebooks.

I moved Literature time to the morning because we'd been neglecting it a bit. We divided into four groups and studied different aspects of our passage for this week than met and reported to the whole group. They really seemed to enjoy this group work. I think it will prepare them well for next year because I know the upper grades do alot of group work.

After lunch we hit grammar HARD. I almost had to send Mrs. Jennifer for a Starbucks run because that is our drowsiest time. However, I kept hammering them. We really worked on telling if a sentence is a simple vs. a compound. Then we worked on compound subjects and compound verbs within a simple sentence. I went ahead and introduced linking verbs, predicate nouns, and predicate adjectives. They were "glassy-eyed" by this point but hopefully some of the lesson got through. We may camp on this for two weeks.

Science entailed a few of the students presenting lap books and narrations that were all excellent!

IMPORTANT NOTES AND REMINDERS:
--Our next literature selection is The Door in the Wall ISBN# 978-0-440-40283-1. If you have a copy, bring it next week to show me. I will hand a new one to any that need a copy.
--The books I'm reading in class to your students can count on the reading list for Medieval Times
Here's a list that we've read since the program started:
Joan of Arc Tom Thumb
Toad and Diamonds Prince Henry
St. Valentine

Assignments:

History
--narration on ch. 28
--mapwork
--color page (astrolabe)
--two Joan of Arc pages
--Optional Enrichment Activities: 1. make an astrolabe
2. color and make paper dolls of Isabella and Ferdinand
--read ch. 31 in SOTW (NOTE: we're skipping a couple of chapters)

Literature
--definitions and questions
--read the rest of the Robin Hood book

Grammar
--review ch. 15 and administer test
--complete ch. 16 from text
--complete ch. 16 vocab definitions and sentences to turn in
--Yeah! (I love similes and metaphors!)

Science
--Option 1: read pages 141--148 and produce a thorough narration due next week (a narration on the last half of the chapter will be due the following week)
--Option 2: read the whole chapter and produce a lapbook due in 2 weeks over the whole chapter
--With either option: enter the following terms in your science spiral: mantle, incurrent siphon, excurrent siphon, byssal thread, spat, radula
--Has anyone kept up with their ocean box? Let me know.

Enjoy your week!
love,
Mrs. Tkach