Blink!

Although our day was supposed to begin with spelling class, we took a detour into basic programming, instead. Sunday night, I added new social studies work to Homework Hideout. Because I wanted to be sure everyone noticed it, I announced the addition in red, blinking letters. It seems these blinking letters were a hit. Because each student has decided to start their own blog, they know that there is no option to click and add “blink” to your text. The kids know how to make words bold, underlined, or change their color, but “How on Earth did you make your words BLINK?!”

I grabbed the white board marker and explained how most simple websites are created using html. I explained that those little buttons that they click to make their words bold are actually adding the html tag <bold> </bold> to each side of the words that they wrote. They didn't realize that all of those cute websites, with colors and pictures and videos, are actually lines of code... giving the instructions for what you see. I compared this to our bodies... We have clothes, glasses, hair, necklaces, and all sorts of attractive things on the outside of our bodies. But, the insides of our bodies have all of the important “guts” that, although they aren't pretty to look at, make us tick! On Homework Hideout, I will explain how they can see the source code to Homework Hideout. It may look like a jumbly mess, but it is what lays out the webpage so that they can see what work to do at home.

Finally, I showed them the html tag for “blink”, and showed them how to edit the html of their blog posts. I am hoping to see some blinking letters show up on one of their blogs!

Spelling- We reviewed and discussed the spelling of each word in list 30. Because of all of the homophones in the list, we spend time learning the correct usages of if's, its, they're, there, and their. They put their knowledge to the test with a fill-in the blank activity, which we checked together.

Grammar- Today, the students learned how to diagram sentences with compound verbs. Only a month ago, they were looking ahead in their workbooks and gasping at how hard all of these diagrams were going to be. But, now that we've stepped our way towards the back of the book, they aren't hard at all! I love watching them recognize how far they have come, and how learning is incremental. They also reviewed prepositions, prepositional phrases, and objects of prepositions today. Although most of them have the list of prepositions memorized, it can sometimes be hard to point them out in a sentence. I got out the big roll of paper, and we spent time writing each preposition down-- all over the place! Beneath could go beneath another word, above could go at the top, under could go under a word. They drew “aboard” aboard a ship. Writing each of the words down and thinking about their meanings (and recognizing that not all of them can be drawn in context, like “at” and “of”), will hopefully help make them easier to locate!

Math- Today was one of those “put on your thinking cap” days. The students learned how to borrow down a line of place values. For instance, when subtracting 17 from 8000, you will need to borrow from the next place value over, which doesn't have enough to share. So, I explained that you have to “break open the big 1000 pack” and share down the line. After some visual demonstrations of breaking apart a 1000 block to get ten 100's, and breaking open one of those 100's to get ten 10's, and then sharing one of those 10's by breaking it down into 10 ones, they were able to master the concept! We will be working more on this at home tomorrow, as well as in class again on Thursday. I was very proud of them for all that they accomplished today!

Social Studies- Today, the class learned about the Constitutional Convention and the different plans for representation. They learned about the importance of compromise in government and how the Constitution was ratified. They continue to work on reading comprehension (well above grade level, mind you), and answered questions pertaining to their reading.

Reading/Writing- Today, we spent time catching up on our Hamlet summaries. The kids have been working so hard on their own versions of the story of Hamlet. We will continue to add to these as we make our way through “Hamlet for Kids”!

Art- It was a day “Under the Sea” today in art class! Ms. Nancy helped the kids think of all of the creatures that live under the sea. They used real sand to create their sea floors, and designed sea creatures that they painted, cut, and pasted into their scene. Once the kids got past sharing every bit of sea trivia that they could possibly think of, they created some beautiful works of art!

Music- Ms. Fanette knows what makes these kids tick! She is working with the children to go over the concepts that they will be tested over at the end of the school year. They did a sight reading exercise that incorporated the things they have learned during their flashcard practice. As a reward for their focused attention, she taught them how to play the theme song to Star Wars!