Our Day in Retrospect & Assignments for 9/16/08

Hello Dear Families,

I'm a happy Mama tonight! I made a flying run to Charleston after class and picked up my Citadel Cadet and get to enjoy him being home for the weekend. Most all my blogs end with me urging you to enjoy your children. It seems about a month and a half ago this young man was at my knee playing and being read to and learning and growing. Blink too fast and your young ones will be out from under your roof and you'll understand my encouragements to slow down and enjoy!

We had another full day of learning. Mrs. Brenda Gudzan was our helper and we enjoyed her kind ways so much. Thank you, Mrs. Brenda! Ask your student if they remember the "jelly roll" she showed us how to do.

We're having fun talking about the familiar story of Daniel and doing the puzzles about his story. I love how ready my students are to share their work with each other. Latin is progressing well, I think. I've decided to spend three class periods on chapter two since there are alot of rules to remember. Try to encourage your students to use their Latin in everyday life. "Salvete!" "Oremus", "Dear Deus", etc.

We read The Boy Who Held Back the Sea and Katje, the Windmill Cat (recommended in SOTW) during history and The Magic School Bus In a Hurricane during science (recommended in our science curriculum). We discussed William the Silent and decided he's our newest hero. We branched off into a discussion of the roots of Protestantism. Your sweet children are anxious, as all children are, to know who's the bad guys and who's the good guys. I tread carefully when these questions come up. I never want to trespass onto your place in guiding your children. The tendancy is to categorize Catholics as bad. I cautioned them against this. We were able to talk about the clear teaching of scripture concerning who Christians are and the dangers of adding other "works" to the Gospel in order to become one. See if you can draw them out on this subject and use our history lesson as a springboard to teach them about your faith.

In History we also discussed the dikes of The Netherlands and the use of the windmills to pump the water out into the sea. We made dikes in a large pan from playdough and talked about the battle for The Netherlands. We sure love playdough!

Kirsten saved me from a mistake I made on the science assignment. I actually needed the fat pencils today but posted the need for next Tuesday. She had four that she donated, I had two and two children were content to use skinny ones. Thank you Kirsten! I will replace your 4 pencils by next class period. I hope our wind guages made it home safely.

We had a full, fun busy day. I'm going to cut off my ramblings so I can administer a back rub before Joe falls asleep!

ASSIGNMENTS:

Grammar:
3rd grade: --review lesson 5 on pgs 25 & 26
--complete exercise A on pg. 26
--review lesson 6 on pg. 27--28
--complete exercises A, B, & C
2nd grade:--review Unit 1, Lesson 3 on pg. 14
--complete exercise A on pg. 15, only #1,2, & 3
--complete exercise B on pg. 15, only #1 & 2
--review Unit 1 Lesson 8 on pg. 24
--complete exercise A & B

Literature:
--We talked at length about empathy. We see it often in William Bradford. I have challenged your child to look for someone that is hard for them to have empathy for and then choose to show kindness to that person this week. (Most assured me it was sibling! :)
--continue memorizing the Lord's Supper
--read ch. 5 & 6 pgs. 65--91
--answer review questions

History:
--produce a narration on "The Dutch Revolt"
--do mapwork
--read "The Queen Without a Country" part of ch. 2
--optional color pages

Science:
--At the end of the day, I handed a paper to your child about the Beaufort Scale for measuring wind speed. Review it carefully with your child since we didn't have time to in class. Also, help them make their wind guages function. You have to adjust them so that the plate can spin freely. Also, I'm not sure they understood my explanation about counting the number of times the black cup came around in a 30 second time period, then multiplying that by 2 to arrive at how many revolutions per minute the wind is blowing. Spend some time clarifying and enjoying their guages. We got one really spinning fast in front of a fan in our class.

Latin:
--review the dipthongs and translations in lesson 2
--review Magistra and Salvete
--review Oremus and the 1st two lines of the prayer on pg. 11
--do review and translation on pg. 12

Bible:
--complete "Daniel's Furry Friend"
--read ch. 102 on pages 237--239 which is from Daniel 4

love and prayers. . .
Mrs. Tkach