Friday, 28 Sept

Today began with some penmanship review, specifically the printed letter a,o and c.  We'll do more of this next week and then move on to cursive writing later.  From there I returned the grammar tests done yesterday.  There was a great improvement over the first test - many people doubled their scores.  We will now use our knowledge of parts of speech to help us understand some key grammar rules and this should help us understand how to improve our writing.  After being introduced to the word "syntax" (and hearing some funny examples to understand what it means) we learned our first new rule: subject-verb agreement.  This one can be tricky to get correct in complex sentences. (Thanks, Kassandra, for sending the pic - hopefully we'll have the technology moved soon so we can always upload interactive pages to the blog).

After recess we did math.  The 6s did some practice questions from their last lesson on the Cartesian plane and reading coordinates.  They should try to finish the practice set on pp. 26-28 (#1-10) for homework.  The 7s had a lesson on creating relations (expressions) using variables.  We noted the meaning of n, 2n, n/2, n+2 and n-2.  Both groups also did a session of Xtramath.  Please remember to try a session on Saturday and Sunday.  The 7s have no math homework.

After lunch we did reading with our little buddies.  Next we decided that the novel Crash should be completed by everyone no later than Thanksgiving Monday.  All should be prepared for a whole-book discussion on Tuesday, October 9.  We also discussed some of the differences between two of the main characters, Crash and Penn.  We noted that the traits/comments we highlighted in green went a bit deeper into who each character really is.

Afterwards, we ended the day with a crazy game of tag that Mr. Richey taught me.  Everyone was it at once and there was freeing, and constant re-tagging.  Shouts out to Kira and Mia who I've dubbed the "evil step sisters" because they made sure I was tagged pretty much the whole game - thanks girls.  Thanks also to the many compassionate students who took pity on me and freed me.

(p.s. I talked with Ms. McBain, and it turns out I'm not allowed to give you "A"s in P.E. in spite of my promise to do so).