Thursday 10/13/16

Today's class began with a phonics review for the Chicken Group.  We went over each of the special sounds charts, and then they learned a few more sounds from the green chart.  They class did a great job circling special sounds and marking vowels as we broke down words into easily digested chunks.  We had a spelling review game using letter tiles, as well.  I was really able to see a divide in the class between those who are spending time on the at-home material and those few who admitted that they are not completing the assignments/studying.  I tried to explain that, by skipping over or flying through the at-home assignments, they will be making things harder for themselves in the long run.  Spelling words, for instance, get progressively more difficult throughout the year.  If we are not spending 5 actual days of lessons, it will be very hard to master the lists.  Hopefully, the kids will start to understand that the at-home lessons are not simply
"homework", but should actually take the time/focus needed to equal a day of instruction.

The Guineas had a spelling review before taking a pre-test.  This group has really taken time with their at-home lessons, and it shows!  We continued to work on the background for our puppet show video on "The Duel".

In vocabulary, the classes both did an excellent job with their understanding of the words on the current list. They read through the passage in the text, and discussed the meanings of the terms.  

In history class, the students were split into three teams for a review game over the material on Islam in the Arabian Peninsula.  Both Mr. Jim and I were thoroughly impressed!  The students worked without notes or books, and they answered almost every question correctly!  There was MUCH excitement over the game, and they didn't want to stop.... so we adjusted the class times to allow for more review game time!

In grammar, the Horse Group continued to learn more about adverbs.  We have learned that adverbs can tell us how, when, where, how often, and to what extent.  We are working through each of these different ways that adverbs can modify verbs, and the students will be working more with this during an at-home video lesson.

The Cow Group had a quick review of initials and abbreviations today.  Then, we moved on to another way words can be shortened: contractions.  We worked through different contractions, noting the placement of the apostrophe.  They will be doing an at home video activity that will help to strengthen their understanding of contractions so that we can work more with them when we return on Tuesday.

 After math independent study time, we had a quick science review of evaporation, condensation, and precipitation.  We observed how condensation forms on a cup of cold water, and discussed the reason why.  We will be moving on to weathering and erosion for next week's science class.

At the end of the day, I pulled together both grammar classes for a fun game of Funglish.  One student was given a secret word, which was a noun.  He or she had to use only adjective tiles to help their peers guess the noun.  The tiles were placed on a board and separated into "Definitely", "Sort of", and "Not".  For instance, if the word was "crocodile", the student would put "green", "long", and "wild" under "Definitely", "cuddly" under "Not", and so on.  They really liked it, and it was an awesome way to help them remember what adjectives do!