Thursday, 9/28/17

It was another hot day out on the farm!  The kids began their day with a vocabulary test over their list.  I was very impressed!  They all did a great job, and this was the first test of the year!  We reviewed our new spelling lists, discussing any tricky words.  The book 3 students had some words that they had never heard before:  addend, subtrahend, and minuend.  Today, they learned the meaning of each, so we had a little surprise math lesson!

It was a big day in grammar today, as both classes learned some new information.  The Girly Goats learned about infinitives and conjugation.  They learned how to diagram simple sentences, and I explained the importance of creating good habits early.  In this class, they will be picking out the verbs first, then finding the subject.  This may seem silly now, but later when the sentences are more complex, it will help make things more clear!  The Girly Goats also learned about first, second, and third person.  We conjugated some verbs together so that they could see the different forms of the verb used for different points of view.  The Happy Horses also learned how to diagram simple sentences today.  We will baby-step them into diagramming, and they will be experts in no time!  The class learned the definition of a sentence, pointing out complete sentences from sentence fragments.  In both grammar classes, we will be using flip-cards to help them remember all of the lists and definitions.

In writing class, the students reviewed "dead words".  They played a game where they acted out a dead word (such as "walking") and then students had to use a better word for the action.  They loved this game!  Ms. Hilary really has these kids thinking about their word choice, and their writing shows their improved skills!  In history, the class has been talking about Native American storytelling.  Last week, the kids had written their own stories that personify a weather condition.  Today, they shared these stories, and they were fantastic!  The class brought in rocks today, which Ms. Hilary used as story starters.  They were given symbols which represent different words.  After decorating their rocks with the symbols, the students took turns drawing rocks from the basket and creating their own stories from the words.

In science class, Ms. Sally reviewed the concepts from the weather lesson.  They talked about weathering and erosion.  They discussed how wind, water, sand, rain, and glaciers, affect the land.  The class headed outside, where they mixed gravel and crush and run with peat moss.  One group created a steep slope, and the other created a gently one.  Ms. Sally showed the class how a gentle rain and a heavy rain will wash away the soil and leave behind large rocks.  They applied this to what they have seen on hikes, camping trips, vacations, etc.  She wrapped up the class with clippings from National Geographic articles which help the children better visualize the concepts that they have talked about.  They then sorted the clippings into two groups: natural and manmade.