This week in class we started with a Quick Write that asked about family heritage since it was St. Patrick's Day. While my kids are "mutts," a blend of 8 or 9 nationalities, we have incorporated some Scandinavian traditions into our family celebrations. As I write this, I'm thinking that it would be fun to incorporate some those British, German, and Scotch-Irish elements into our family, too.
The Words of the Day were short words or words for very small items:
aglet -- fr. OF aiguillette, a small needle -- the plastic or metal end of a shoelace
chad -- origin unknown -- a small round or square bit of paper formed when a hole is punched
grommet -- fr, OF gromette, curb of a bridle -- a metal or plastic ring encasing and reinforcing a hole
vim -- fr. an Americanism; fr. Latin vis, energy, force -- a lively and enthusiastic spirit
mauw -- fr. German, maul, muzzle -- the mouth, throat, or gullet of an animal
I handed back the Rough Drafts of the Cause/Effect or Problem/Solution Essays. The class did a wonderful job with this assignment. When I hand back rough drafts, I like to use that as an opportunity to go over common errors. Students can learn points of grammar with worksheets, but it makes the most sense in the context of their own writing. Our list included such items as not using contractions, avoiding "there is/are" sentences, avoiding the word "things," subject-verb agreement, noun-pronoun agreement, etc.
For the past few weeks, during the Grammar portion of class we've been learning about various types of phrases. This week we concluded this unit by reviewing infinitive phrases. Students shouldn't be surprised if they are confused. These are really advanced grammar topics and are not as simple as picking out the subject or verb of a sentence. When verbs (action words) morph into adjectives (participles) or nouns (gerunds) or nouns/adjectives/adverbs (infinitives), it gets pretty complicated. We're now leaving phrases, and will be exploring types of sentences and elements in a sentence.
The class had read 4 Short Stories for this week; to close out the class we watched a Lego version of Twain's "The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaverous County.
Assignments for this Week:
Read the following stories: Chopin (p. 30), London (p. 122), Mansfield (p. 130), Gilman (p. 50)
Write 3 Discussion Questions per story
Final Drafts of Problem/Solution or Cause/Effect Essays
Grammar Worksheets -- 9.2
Links for this Week:
Class Notes
Have a beautiful week!
Mrs. Prichard
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