Thursday, 9/14/17

Before class, I caught the kids up on how we prepared for Hurricane Irma here on the farm!  We moved ducks, rabbits, and silkies into crates indoors, locked up the goats, horse, donkey, and dogs, and cooped up each and every chicken!  It was a wild weekend, but all of the animals came through safe and sound!

Spelling-  

We went over our spelling words for list 2 today.  We discussed some tricky spellings, and learned some tricks about marking accents for accented syllables.  For example, the word content can be pronounced two different ways and have two different meanings, depending on how it is accented!  

Grammar-  

Today, the Happy Horses continued their lesson in forming plural nouns.  They did a great job with their “s” or “es” lesson at home!  They learned when to change a y to an i and when to just add an s.  We also talked about those tricky “f” and “fe” words… and irregulars!  The kids will continue to practice these skills at home, and we will review their work next week.

The Girly Goats made corrections to their at-home assignments on forming plurals.  We reviewed common and proper nouns, and got an arm work-out!  As I read a story, the students had to raise one arm for each common noun they heard and two arms for each proper noun.  It looked a bit like an aerobics class!  Afterward, the class began a new lesson on proofreading marks.  They will be learning how to mark (and read) proofreading marks in grammar class, and hopefully will get the hang of the idea of having to rewrite papers!  

Writing/Literature-

Today, Ms. Hilary talked all about brainstorming!   The students chose a topic: “planning a trip” or “leaving in a hurry”.  They used a graphic organizer to jot down ideas that came to mind.   

Both classes will be reading BFG in literature class.  The students are keeping a reading log to help them as they read through the book.   

History- 

Ms. Hilary taught the class about the explorers of the new world.  They learned that these sailors believed that the world was flat- which some kids found to be hilarious!  The thought that grown men could be scared of sea monsters, falling off the earth, etc was a shock!  Last week, the students began learning map-reading skills.  They continued this lesson today, as they began designing their own compass rose.  We will work more on these next week!

Science- 

The kids reviewed what they had learned about the scientific method, and talked evn more about volcanoes today.  They learned about the lava flow, the magma chamber, and more.  To help them remember what they discussed, the class worked on a construction paper volcano project which opens to reveal the inner workings of the volcano.  These kids ate this lesson UP!