What a great week we have had! I am always amazed at how quickly the students are able to jump back into the swing of things.
MUR 5 and 6:
This week we began reading the novel Dragonwings. A wonderful story about a young boy who leaves China to meet his father for the first time in American during the gold rush in San Francisco. The novel focuses on Moon Shadow and his growing love and respect for his father as well as a strange new country despite its difficulties and hardships. On Wednesday, we used the tablets to research Li Keng Wong's real life experience coming to American and going through Angel Island. We also viewed numerous pictures of San Francisco in 1903. The student's were amazed to learn other's reactions and misconceptions about our country during this time period.
In grammar we quickly reviewed nouns, adjectives, articles and pronouns and by Thursday we were diagramming prepositional phrases.
Our new spelling/vocabulary program is amazing. We were able to do numerous fun lessons using the Latin roots for numbers as well as learn a few Latin phrases.
Next week, we will move into independent reading and discussion groups!
MUR 3 and 4:
This week students were introduced to the Direct Inquiry method. We began by reading the story Two Brothers as a class. Next, the class compiled a list of questions about the story and worked on rating our questions. (Can we answer our questions using the text or do we have to make up an answer?) We learned that many questions cannot be supported by text, so we threw them out. The next day we began gathering evidence for our impending seminar. We reread the text silently and marked places where we liked things the brothers did or didn't do. Then finally on Thursday we had our first seminar. Students sat in a circle and discussed the text. We had a very interesting discussion about which brother made the better choice. Next week, we will begin our Folktales unit.
In grammar, students were introduced to the analytical grammar process. We began by looking at nouns, their function in a sentence and how to label them.
In spelling/vocabulary, students began working in Wordlywise. This is a very challenging curriculum for the students, but they have come through with shining colors. Each day we worked through a new exercise trying to acquaint ourselves with this new format.
