thoughts on 4/15/08 and assignments for 4/22/08

Hello Families,

We had an eventful day and I'm exhausted! It was such a pleasant thing to see all of Trinity assembled. We were treated to a lesson from Matt L., the Director of Praise and Worship at Community Bible Church on the life and work of Martin Luther. This complimented out current study of the Reformation very nicely. We also trooped down to the kitchen to conduct a science project which we'll observe next week as well. We finished the day by making rose petal necklaces. I read in a book loaned to me by Mrs. Esther that often the children of the Medieval days made these because rose bushes were plentiful. Even the poorest could decorate themselves with these ornaments. Many of us, including myself, read our reports on our assigned reformer. We'll finish those up next week. We took a major detour in grammar by observing me write a 2 point paragraph as taught early in the Shurley teacher's manual. I actually modeled two different paragraphs using this method. Even in Bible time I detoured from our regular study to teach the children that Christ expects us to be kind to everyone--even those that are not easy to be kind to or are different from us. I FULLY expect this lesson to be practiced in our classroom.

Whew! As I said, it was not a normal day. We were treated to having Mrs. Loper as a helper today--many thanks! I regret most running out of time to have Ona classify a sentence while her Mom was with us. We'll just have to talk Mrs. Loper into coming back and Ona can do two sentences!!!

Here are the assignments for this week.

HISTORY:
--produce a narration on ch. 37 (try using the 2 point paragraph we studied in grammar)
--map and color page
--read ch. 38

LITERATURE:
--finish the study guide on The Door in the Wall
--memorize Rev. 3:7 and 8. This is a passage from the front of our book. Remember that memorization is encouraged in The Well Trained Mind. I hope to have some of us recite some of our memory work from the year at the end-of-the-year celebration
--NOTE: Next week your student will receive our next literature selection. It is Saint George and the Dragon. The ISBN# is 0-316-36795-8. If you have a copy and don't want to purchase this one through the school, be sure your student has it with them next week to show me.

SCIENCE:
--Write a narration on the last half of Lesson 11 (middle of pg. 178 until the end)

GRAMMAR:
--using the sheet I copied for you about a 2 point paragraph as a model, write a paragraph on this topic: Your thoughts on Trinity Classical Academy. Parents, I highly recommend your student receive alot of input and guidance from you. I'm looking for noticeable effort--not perfection.
--vocab from ch. 20 with sentences
--I leave up to you parent/teachers the decision about completing the grammar exercises in ch. 20. At this point, I plan to concentrate on the writing techniques we've passed over all year for a while. We will continue the vocab each week.

BIBLE:
--read chapter 94 which is taken from II Kings 16 & 17 and II Chronicles 28

PARENTS:
--Set aside some time this week to observe and enjoy your child. Grab some siblings or friends and run a relay race. Observe a butterfly. Take a walk after dark. Take it from me, it goes by too fast. My oldest turned 21 Thursday!

love,
Mrs. Tkach