Week 5 Recap!

Greetings,
Another great week under our belt.  Valerie, you were missed!

**EiE Event is October 25th.  We are starting to plan the class presentation.  Sometime soon, we will need to get a headcount of who can attend.  I (Corey) cannot attend due to my job, but Kelly will be coordinating our class's involvment.  Please direct any questions to her.

Here is the recap:

DEVOTIONS:
-Discussed the word REMISSION
-Romans 3:25 "Remission of sins that are past"
-from Latin 'remitto' meaning: to send back
-Remission of sins: to send back the penalty of sin, synonym: forgiveness
-Discussed what a scapegoat is in Leviticus 16
-Matthew 26:28, Luke 1:77, John 20:23, Acts 10:43, Hebrews 9:22 and 10:18

LATIN:
-Reviewed gender rules
-Introduced I-Stem and how to tell if a word is an I-Stem
-Declined flumen and pars (flumen has macron over the u, but I can't make it show up right now using my iPad) :-)
-Worked through exercises 43, 48, 49, 50
-used collis to show that Henle will point out words that are exceptions to the rule
-vocab review
-'Gentile' comes from 'gens', and 'apartment' comes from 'pars'.  Hopefully, families are taking time to enjoy finding derivitates in the real world.  That can help motivate and bring some enjoyment to Latin.
-Keep studying those flashcards as much as possible.  Remember to study both ways (Engish to Latin and Latin to English).

RESEARCH:
-Presentations were...again....AWESOME!
-Several students really pushed themselves out of their normal comfort zone this week and I am so proud of them.
-Dialectic discussion about next topic:  Weather.  We discussed the various weather patterns around us and in other parts of the world.  We talked about weather's effect on economy, inventions, military endeavors etc. in the past and currently.   We discussed biblical events involving weather.  This is a great topic to have discussion using the 5 Common Topics.

MATH:
-Mental math exercises on their lap boards
-practiced how to use protractors to draw specific angles
-defined polygons and looked at various polygons
-defined polygon: equilateral, vertex, similar vs. congruent, irregular vs. regular
-compared/contrasted perimeter of a polygon to circumference of a circle
-Introduced exponents and square roots
-Reviewed PEMDAS order of operations

LTW:
-candy sorting exercise that was done at Parent Boot camp
-practiced sorting the ANI that we made as a class the week before
-Brainstorming and sorting were easy and enjoyable for us adults, but dialect skills are still developing in these students.  They still need to be prodded with guided questions as they practice sorting and choosing labels for their categories.  They may get stuck this week and need a little help.
-They should have at least 15 per column on their ANI chart from last week.  If not, have them use the 5 common topics to fill their ANI chart prior to sorting.
-LTW will take more time this week than it has in previous weeks.

GEOGRAPHY:
-Geography Test on United States
-Parents are to grade their students tests but, in class, the top 3 students earned stickers.  They were: Miss Glanzer, Miss Lo and Miss Morse were the class winners
-Introduced Central America, Greater Antilles and Lesser Antilles
-Remember to still practice Canada and US

RHETORIC:
-discussed chapter 4
-uniformitarianism verses catastrophism
-played outside game reviewing catechism questions

We ended the day outside in the warm fall day, which was a nice change of scenery!
Have a great weekend!  Please call/email if you have any questions or concerns!


-Corey

Week 4 Recap!

Greetings,
So, we have completed our first 4 weeks.  That is quite the accomplishment!  Yes, the workload is intense, but students and parents seem to be settling into a routine.  The students are getting more engaged in discussions and are having fun showing off their skills in review games and presentations.

Even with Picture Day, we got through a lot of material today.  Here is the recap:

DEVOTIONS:
-GRACE was the word of the day, defined as unmerited favor
-reviewed previous terms from Romans 3:20-25
-acronym Gods Riches At Christ's Expense
-using Romans 11:2-6 discussed the difference between works vs grace and works vs believing

LTW:
-using Carrry On Mr Bowditch we discussed the 5 Common Topics in detail
-worked through a class ANI Chart using the 5 Common Topics
-students will make their own ANI Chart this week using the 5 Common Topics to aid them

GEOGRAPHY:
-practiced US boundaries, capitals, waters and features in group games
-suggested putting larger rivers and mountain ranges on their maps before drawing boundaries to help with scaling the size of the states.
-**students will need to know this info well for the Excellence In Education event (more info coming in next blog post)
-practiced defining and drawing Geo Terms.  Be sure student are paying attention to the written definitions in addition to the pictures in order to compare/contrast similar terms.
-Remember to review Canada this week, too

RHETORIC:
-discussed Chapter 3 which included a lively discussion regard the Greenhouse Effect.  It was fun to seem them start forming opinions based off of what they are learning, especially as it relates to politically charged issues.
-briefly reviewed catechism questions.  It can be easy to forget to memorize these.  Remember to verify that your students have these flashcards and are memorizing them.  Soon we will have enough in our memory bank to play review games with them.

LATIN:
-Reviewed vocab
-Introduced 3rd Declension
-discussed how to determine gender in 3rd Declension:  apply the Natural Gender Rule first, then apply SOX, ERROR, LANCET rule to the Nominative Singular
-Introduced Appositives and practiced sentences containing them

RESEARCH:
-Great presentations this week on mountains and volcanos!
-What a joy to see them take what they are learning and give the glory back to God!
-Students will research constellations this week.

MATH:
-Mental Math on their dry erase boards
-discussed the steps to solving story problems
-discussed equivalent fractions
-discussed unit measurement conversions
-practices various problems
-**If your student is interested in Math League, contact the Lo family.  The first practice is this coming Monday.  Info is on Facebook.

Great job parents and students!  Whew! We made it 4 weeks!  I am really enjoying my time with your kids.  They all have such positive attitudes in class all day long.  They have great ideas and insights as they take in this information and integrate it.  I also enjoy seeing their silly sides come out more and more.

Feel free to contact me with any questions/feedback.
Have a great week,
Corey

Week 1 Recap!

Hello proud parents,  

Today was fantastic!  We were so impressed with your students and their willingness to learn and participate in class.  Their answers to the autobiography questions were so unique and fun to hear.  What an interesting group of kids!

Here is a recap from today:

Devotions

-discussion of the term justification as it relates to being “declared righteous” and free from the penalty of sin thanks to the crosswork of Christ

-discussed God being both ‘just’ and ‘the justifier’ out of Romans 3

-look at other ways that the Bible uses the word justification

Latin (Grammar)

-reviewed noun cases, 1st declension, and modeled how to find a stem and decline a noun

-reviewed grammar rules 32 and 33  **It is recommended that students write out the grammar rules and put them in that category of their notebook to study and reference during class

-Performed exercises 1, 3, 4

Geography (Debate)

-drew Canada and learned some tricks for memorizing terratories and provinces

-discussed interesting facts about Canada (thanks Heiko for your input!)

-we recommend the Geography snippets on CC Connected

-students should make flashcards of the geography features for future games; you will find the first list of terms to memorize on the Week 2 section in the guide

-we recommend going to CC connected for Geo Cards by User Lwest

-emphasized PRACTICE PRACTICE PRACTICE with the drawing!!

Math (Logic)

-its OK that students are on different levels and using different curriculums

-defined/discussed a lot of math terms (whole numbers, integers, ellipsis, equation, commutative property, variable, sequences)

-covered basic content of Saxon 8/7 lessons 1-4

-dialectic discussion on uses of math in the real world (they were so awesome with this!)

-students are encouraged to bring problems to class for discussion

LTW (Expo and Comp)

-discussed forming a 'should question' and turning it into an ‘issue'

-did an ANI Chart as a group

-students need to do their own ANI chart for next week as assigned in LTW

Rhetoric

-intro to the text and highlighting system.  For now, just try the blue.

-Ben Stein’s DVD Expelled and the book Slaughter of the Dissidents by Jerry Bergman were mentioned

-students need to begin memorizing catechism questions.  Flashcards found on CC Connected recommended. These will be used in games.

-some of the catchism questions use Bible verses.  Its ok for students to memorize in a different Bible translation.

-students need to read thru chapter 1 which will be discussed next week.

Science (Research)

-performed outdoor planet activity and discussed planets

-DVD The Privileged Planet mentioned

-For next time, students will bring a research paper based on a topic related to planets, a bibliography, and drawing of their topic (length of paper chosen by parent)

-refer to IEW from Essentials for assistance in writing a reseach paper using Key Word Outlining

-They will give a presentation based off of their paper that is 5 minutes or less.  They are not to read their paper, but should have notes on a 3x5 card for reference.

-Sketch journals are recommended.  This could be as simple as a pad of paper.  This is for students to take notes, sketch, journal etc. during their researching and include drawings, diagrams, etc.   This concept reflects back to the scientists in the past, such as Leonardo Da Vinci, who were artists as well as scientists.

It is an absolute privilege to be working with you students!  We were so pleased today and are looking forward to next week!

Please contact us with any questions or feedback!

—Corey and Kelly