Thursday, 10/26/17

Today, the class spent some time doing morning farm chores and taking care of a little doe who injured her leg.  We moved the doe to a stall and kept an eye on her today.  Most likely, it is just a minor injury and she’ll be good as new soon. But, it’s best to be cautious and isolate her form the herd!

After our outdoor adventures in the cold October air, we headed in for a spelling review.  The group went through the list, discussing the spellings of difficult words and writing each one.  They will study this list at home Friday and Monday, as we will have a spelling test on Tuesday.  We are also working through vocabulary list 3 in Worldy Wise.  We’ll spend a couple weeks on this list.

In grammar class, both classes reviewed their at-home assignments.  We are not only working through our workbooks, but we are also taking it a step further.  I like to review as often as possible and push the students with some challenge problems before moving on to the next lesson.  It’s important that we master the material before moving on, and this is the best way to do so!  The Happy Horse Group learned more about direct objects today.  They added a Direct Object card to their grammar card stack, and we worked through direct object sentences together.   We also used their verb tense meters to help determine the tense of different verbs and helping verbs. 






The Girly Goats Group has been studying both direct and indirect objects.  They did a great job with this concept… until we added helping verbs, adjectives, and adverbs to the sentences.  I could tell that once the sentences became more complex, it was much more difficult to pull out the parts of speech.  We spent the day working through examples and reviewing sentences that have both a direct and an indirect object.   Both groups will be reviewing today’s lesson at home on Friday.  On Monday, both classes will attempt a worksheet of challenge sentences to diagram.

In writing class, both groups killed off the dreaded two words, “AND THEN”.  These words are often shoved between sentences, making your writing seem to drone on and on and on!  Today, Ms. Hilary taught bout transition words.  They learned many transitions, and then wrote paragraphs on their own.  All of these kids blew us away with their creativity, detail, and their use of transitions to improve their writing! 

In history class, the group learned about Colonial life.  They learned common names given to children during this time period.  They learned about the clothing they wore, the jobs they had, and the games they played.  The class took their Colonial cutouts and added them to their interactive notebooks.  They then used  the information that they learned today to create a description of their cut-out Colonial American families.  (We even noticed that some students used the transition words that they just learned in the previous class!  Yay!)

During science, Ms. Sally reviewed the types of soil.  The kids observed different types, and used adjectives to describe them in their science notebooks.  They added water to each of the three types of soil, writing down their detailed observations and sharing them with the group.  At the end of class, they constructed edible Earth layers!

Today, the class decided that they wanted to have a little Halloween party on Tuesday afternoon.  The kids can come in costume.  If you would like to bring in a treat to share, feel free!  We'll end our day with some snacks, music, and we'll have a spooky good time!

Tuesday, 10/24/17

Today was the day for both the spelling test for list 7 and the vocabulary test for list 2.  Once we made it through those tasks, the classes moved into new material.  The Girly Goats class reviewed helping verbs and how to diagram them.  They then reviewed last week’s lesson on direct objects.  Next, the group learned about indirect objects.  Although they are easy to point out in these shorter sentences, it is important that we review, review, review!  As the sentences grow longer and more complex, it will be harder to point out the role that each word plays in the sentence.  We’ll keep working with direct and indirect objects until I feel confident that they have each mastered the concept before moving on!   We have been talking a lot about pronouns in class, and the students have memorized the pronoun list.  Today, I explained the difference between subject pronouns and object pronouns.  They worked on identifying each type in a sentence, and we will continue to work through examples at home and in class. 

The Happy Horses were introduced to helping verbs today, and they created a new grammar card for the list.  They will be working on memorizing the helping verb list so that they can identify them more easily.  After we reviewed the parts of speech that they have learned so far, the group worked through the helping verb chant.  Then, the class learned how to diagram sentences that have helping verbs in them.  We will continue to work diagrams that contain helping verbs for the next few days.

In literature class, the students learned about idioms.  They talked about many common idioms, some of which they had never heard before!  They used different idioms such as “an arm and a leg”, “raining cats and dogs”, and “the cat’s out of the bag”.’

In history today, the students were each given a colonial occupation.  They were given their wages in candy…. BUT… before they could partake of their wages, they were read a list of laws that were passed.  As a new law was passed, a new tax was enacted.  The students were taxed on having blue eyes, on wearing shorts, on having hair that was shorter than their shoulders, and so on.  Two students were given the job of tax collectors working for Parliament (Ms. Hilary) to collect the taxes for the queen (Ms. Holly).  It didn’t take long before the students realized how unfair the taxes were!  By the end of the activity, they only had a little bit of their wages left, and some students had barely any wages at all.  In the end, Ms. Hilary explained just how unfair the tax laws were for the colonists.  She explained how the colonists were beginning to feel very upset about their situation.  Once the class was nice and frustrated, they wrote about their feelings!  Although they were supposed to write paragraphs, they ended up writing scathing letters to the queen.  This was an excellent way to get the kids to think past facts and dates!, and to get a feel for the atmosphere at the time!

In art class, Ms. Nancy brought out the chalk pastels.  The class worked on creating a silhouette of a tree.  They were told to let the limbs go off of the page, which created many different spaces on the page.  Then, they used the chalk pastels to fill in the empty places, changing the color for each new space. 

It was a great day for an agriculture lesson!  Tootsie gave birth to a beautiful doeling on Sunday, so I was able to explain to the class the signs of impending labor.  I had moved Tootsie into a kidding stall, so she kidded away from the herd, the dogs, and the donkey.  Even if we are not sure of a goat’s due date, I am able to observe her udder, her ligaments near her tail, and her behavior to help me anticipate the big day. 

Counting the Guinea Keets

Thursday, 10/19/17

Today, Farm News ended up changing my plans, and the class had some agriculture lessons this morning instead of reviewing our vocabulary list.  We always catch up on the happenings on the farm.  But, today there were so many questions, and I decided it could be a very interesting lesson all on its own!  They learned that Ms. Kitty (the mini horse) had her check-up on Tuesday afternoon.  The vet gave her and Delilah (the donkey) their shots, and it turns out that Ms. Kitty’s sore spots on her legs and nose were due to a fly bite allergy.  The class was very interested in the shots and how they were given.  We discussed the times where shots are needed, and I explained that some injections are given sub-Q and some are IM.  The students learned that the Q stands of cutaneous and that “sub” means “under”, so sub-Q means that the shots must be given under the skin.  I explained how, with goats, we can pinch up the skin to form a “tent” and inject easily under the skin.  They learned that IM stands for intramuscular, which means that the injection must be in the muscle.  This lead to a lesson in the use of cc and ml as equivalent units of measurement.  We talked about worming animals, and why it is needed.  They asked about tapeworms, so we talked about how to recognize if your pet is affected by tapeworms and what to do about it.  They were surprised to hear that fleas are a major cause of tapeworms in cats and dogs.  This is because affected tapeworms can be ingested by the animal, and the tapeworm will inhabit the new host.  It wasn’t the morning that I had in mind, but it was definitely educational!

In grammar, the Happy Horse group had a big review day today.  They reviewed adjectives and adverbs.  They diagrammed sentences with different types of adverbs, and we discussed each example.  We revisited the different ways to form plurals and practiced each.  As we continue with new concepts in grammar class, I will definitely keep reviewing past material.  This is the only way all of this information can be retained!  The kids will be working on some review exercises at home, and we will move on to new lessons next week.  The Girly Goats group also reviewed past concepts today, as we talked adjectives, adverbs, and conjugating verbs for singular and plural pronouns.  The class also revisited their lessons on first, second, and third person.  Although we didn’t move on to new material completely, we did touch on direct objects today.  They added this card to their grammar card pile, and we worked through a few examples of sentences with direct objects.  They will be practicing what we learned at home, and we will move forward next week.

In writing class, the students began by pasting their homework into their interactive notebooks.  They then created flaps in their notebook that correlate with their sentence lesson.  They have been talking about how to write descriptive and well thought out sentences.  Ms. Hilary explained to the class the importance of using descriptive words and vivid verbs.  They also learned that stories could begin in different ways.  Sometimes, you can begin your story with dialogue, with a location, with a time, or with an action.  To practice, the students wrote different story beginnings.  They are doing a fantastic job using what they are learning in writing class!

During history, Ms. Hilary helped the class learn the importance of penmanship in the 1600’s.  They were given an example of typical cursive handwriting for the Colonial time period, and they worked to see if they could duplicate it.  They also learned about the hornbook.  Because books were few and textbooks were scarce, the students during this time period often used hornbooks.  The boys were able to work on their cross stitch activity.  The class will continue their lesson on Colonial America next week!

Minerals, rocks, and sediment, oh my!  Ms. Sally had the class’s full attention today as they dove deeper into their lesson on the earth and its resources.  The kids were able to use their magnifying glasses to observe the differences between different types of rocks.  Ms. Sally taught them about sedimentary rocks, igneous rocks, and metamorphic rocks. The students felt the smoothness of river rocks and were amazed by the beauty of geodes. They looked carefully at fossils, discussing their formation.  They learned about the rock cycle and reviewed weathering and erosion.  In their science notebooks, they continued last week’s lesson on comparing and contrasting.  I absolutely adore how Ms. Sally integrates her science lesson across subjects.  For instance, she stopped during today’s reading to point out how the word “rearranging” has both a prefix AND a suffix.  She even integrated history into today’s lesson, as the students learned that the Native Americans used igneous rocks to form into arrowheads because igneous rocks are stronger and harder than other rocks.  They ended the day with a fun, jewelry-making activity!  Thursdays are awesome!

 

Tuesday, 10/17/17

We had a complete day full of grammar, vocabulary, spelling, math, history, and more.
Here are the highlights!

Learning about perspective with a fun BFG art project!

The class experienced what Colonial children entertainment!

They spent time cross-stitching and playing with simple homemade dolls.

The class had a great time making turtles from yarn and sticks!