Faces of History and Break Activities

Hi Essentials Parents!

On Week 12, we discussed our Faces of History Project. For this project, each student chooses one historical figure (preferably from the Medieval Period) and writes a 5-paragraph essay about that person's life.  It is fine to pick someone for your report who is not on this list. Once your child chooses someone, email me your choice. We will try to not double-up on figures. 

Once you have chosen a person, think about 3 topics you want to focus on. Ideas are: childhood, family, skills, battles, education, discoveries, writings, and beliefs. Was he/she a ruler? What were some accomplishments and hardships? How did he/she die? What do people think of him/her today or do we still use their ideas today? Etc....

You will need 3 different sources, so start finding them now. Timeline cards, children’s storybooks, and reference books from the library are good resources. You may use one Internet source with parent approval.

Moms, please read page 169-170 in the student’s IEW book for a brief overview of the 5-paragraph essay. We will spend plenty of time working together on this project in class and at home over the coming weeks. This Faces of History project will begin on Week 13 and will conclude on Week 24 with your presentation to the class. When your report is all finished, you may choose to dress up as your historical person and read to our CC Community at our final banquet (April 25).

Faces of History Ideas for Cycle 2 
Eric the Red
Leif Ericsson
St. Francis of Assisi
Theodoric the Ostrogoth
St. Benedict
Pope Gregory I (Gregory the Great) 
Clovis
Justinian
Harun al-Rashid
Egbert the Saxon
Rollo the Viking
Henry the Fowler
Canute the Great
El Cid
Edward the Confessor
Peter the Hermit
William Tell
Tamerlane
Frederick Barbarossa
St. Dominic
Edward the Black Prince
Louis IX
Geoffrey Chaucer
Thomas Becket
Thomas Aquinas
Erasmus
Jan Hus
John Wycliffe
Fra Angelico

The poet Dante
Joan of Arc - Caroline Vermilyea's choice
King Richard the Lion-Hearted 
Eleanor of Aquitaine
Henry II
Genghis Khan
Kublai Khan
Marco Polo
Prince Henry the Navigator Magellan
Christopher Columbus
King Ferdinand of Spain 
Queen Isabella of Spain 
Suleiman the Magnificent 
King Alfred (the Great)
Mansa Musa
English King John
Gutenberg
William the Conqueror 
Martin Luther  - Carl Barber's choice
Bartolomeu Dias
John Cabot
Vasco Da Gama
Czar Ivan the Great
Charles Martel
Pepin the Short
William Wallace
Robert the Bruce

Shakespeare 
Michaelangelo 
Donatello
Leonardo Da Vinci 
Nicolaus Copernicus 
Saladin
William of Ockham (Occam) 
Roger Bacon
Muhammed
Pope Urban II
Pope Innocent III 
Francesco Petrarch 
Mehmet the Conqueror 
Theodora
Lorenzo de Medici 
Vlad the Impaler 
Maimonides
Averroes ibn Rushd 
Brunelleschi
Edward I (Longshanks) 
Otto the Great Godfrey of Bouillon 
Saint Ludmilla

Osman I
Shen Kuo
Pope Leo IX (1002-1054) 
Charles the Wise
Henry V
Duns Scotus
Boethius
Guy de Chauliac
Giovanni Boccaccio 
Hildegard of Bingen
Pope Pius II
Margaret of Anjou 
Brunhilde
Catherine of Siena 
Empress Adelaide
Richard III
Elizabeth of York
Charles VII
Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim 
Julian of Norwich
Margery Kempe

I also wanted to give you some ideas of how you could brush up on your grammar and writing skills over the break. Here are some fun ideasI found online:

One review game is called Wipe Out. Look through your EEL guide and write some of the terms on a whiteboard. Have your child give definitions or examples of each one and erase them as you go. You might set a timer and see how many she can get erased in three minutes. You can blindfold her, spin her a few times, and have her stick a post-it note on the board to choose one. 

Or how about some Jenga? You can find all the definitions on the Essentials tier of CC Connected. Just print them off, cut them up and tape them on the blocks. 

Of course, Bingo is an easy game to put together. Print a blank bingo card and write the answers to any kind of questions that you think would help reinforce the material. I like to call it VINCO (I conquer) just to throw in some Latin. 

Another way we review the parts of speech while also working on writing skills is by narrating, or telling back, a short section of something you're reading aloud. The Schneitmans do a lot of narrating. It can be anything! Then hand them the book and have them identify different parts of speech. You could also brainstorm for quality adjectives and -ly words. 

One of the ways we have worked with the sentence patterns was by choosing one of our favorite photos and writing sentences incorporating the first four patterns that we are learning. I printed them out and then she parsed, diagrammed, and wrote down the pattern. This was fun.

Another way to think about the sentence patterns and actually write them is for your child to make some up about what she's currently reading. This is a higher thinking skill because not only is she recognizing the pattern, she is putting what she knows into practice. As you can see, she doesn't always get them correct. But she's learning!

To develop excellent writing skills, excellent literature needs to be read. Why not take some time over the holidays to read a few great books together?  By becoming familiar with different great authors and various genres, we increase vocabulary and recognize different styles and techniques. I'm all about using what we read as the jumping off point for writing assignments. 




I also take every opportunity to mix in picture study. Pick-a-Stick lets the child create unique sentences about a particular work of art using dress-ups and stylistic techniques. There are numerous sites where famous artworks are available to download for free. The sticks can have prompts written on them to guide the sentence creations. I love this game; it may be my favorite.

I like to teach punctuation as we read. I think it makes much more sense when seen in the context of a book. Project Gutenberg has all the old classics available to download making it possible to print sections of books. I look up some literature that we are reading and print out a favorite selection. We read it, look and circle all the punctuation; discussing punctuation rules as we go. I then print it again, removing all the punctuation. We work together to replace all of it. I let her do the ones she knows on her own; always adding a new one following Pudewa's EZ+1 motto.



And using a whiteboard always makes everything a little more enjoyable.

Listening to audible books is a great family activity. You can do this while baking cookies or cuddling up by the fire with hot chocolate. We are currently listening to Swiss Family Robinson. Free audiobooks are available with the Librivox app or at Librivox.org. Some Librivox audiobooks are on You Tube. Audible.com also has affordable audiobooks. 


Select a few paragraphs to practice keyword outlining as demonstrated in Units 1 and 2. Take a story from history or an Aesop's fable and retell it using the structure of Unit 3. You can also help your child write a short report, Unit 4, about something related to one of the science sentences memorized so far. Practicing this assignment will help as we move on to our research papers and Faces of History papers.


I encourage you to spend some time over the break to pour over Andrew Pudewa's thoughts in the writing curriculum (Teaching Writing: Structure and Style). He's got great stuff and remember, you paid for all this curriculum so take advantage of it. There is also great info at IEW.com including great podcasts you can listen to while making dinner. 


I love how the Classical model invites us to be creative and tailor the curriculum to meet our individual child's needs. Enjoy the break and make learning English grammar and writing a natural part of each day. If you need anything, please let me know. 


-Jenna

Week 11

So sorry I missed you all this week. I had a pretty good day of rest, so hopefully I'll be back to normal tomorrow. I'm attaching our take-home sheet at the top and what follows is basically my lesson plan for class today. Please let me know if you have any questions. 

Hope you have a great weekend!

Grammar

 Review - See attached crossword puzzle to print if you'd like

1. Linking Verbs.
1. Definition: A linking verb makes and assertion by joining two words. 
2. Sing Chart C Linking Verbs – The Ants Go Marching
3. (feel, become, remain, taste, seem, appear, look, sound, stay, smell, grow, am, are, is, was, were, be, being, been
2. So a linking verb must be present in 2 of our sentence patterns – S-Vl-PN (Subject, Verb linking, Predicate Nominative) and S-Vl-PA (Subject, Verb linking, Predicate Adjective). If you see a linking verb, you will know that you have one of these two following it.
3. Predicate Nominative – this is the next thing we must know.
1. Definition: A predicate nominative is a noun or pronoun that follows a linking verb and renames the subject. 
2. So let’s define a noun: A noun names a person, place, thing, activity, or idea. 
3. And a pronoun: A pronoun replaces a noun in order to avoid repetition. 
4. Predicate Adjective – 
1. Definition – An adjective modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, qualifying, or limiting.
   Adjectives answer the questions: What kind? How many? Which? Whose?
5. So if we are looking for a word following a linking verb then this should be pretty easy to find. Then we just have to determine if it is a noun/pronoun or an adjective. 
6. Examples: 
1. Jesus is Holy.
2. The bear is a carnivore.
3. The boy is kind.
4. Our Lord is God.

New Grammar

1. Compound Sentences – remember that a Compound sentence has a FANBOYS and contains 2 or more independent clauses. 
2. And we have talked about Compound Declarative sentences – the just declare something or give information. It’s easy to turn a declarative sentence into an exclamatory sentence. What does an exclamatory sentence do? It exclaims something. So we just add an exclamation point on the end and poof – we have a compound exclamatory sentence.
3. Examples:
1. Jesus is Holy!
2. The bear is a carnivore!
3. The boy is kind!
4. Our Lord is God!

Writing

Cover 3SSS – Short, Staccato Sentences pg. 113

The name 3SSS stands for short, staccato sentences. The 3sss is simply the use of three short sentences (no more than five words each) in a row. Using short sentences in the middle of longer sentences can be a powerful way to draw attention to the short sentences, so use short sentences for important parts of a story. 

Sample: The dragon terrorized the town everyday. It swooped over the city. It spit fire. It left devastation. 

Sample from Selby's Faces of History paper last year: She was devastated. She vowed revenge. This started her pirate life. 

~JENNA

Essentials Week 10

I wanted to take a moment to discuss the Essentials portion of CC Connected with you all. Just like there are resources for Foundations on CC Connected, there are also tutorials and file sharing for Essentials. For example, there are documents including daily checklists for Grammar and Writing. If you've been struggling with a daily schedule for Essentials class, this might be a good resource. There is a separate subscription fee for the Essentials portion of CC Connected, but it might be worth a look. I'd be happy to log on during Community Day, so you could browse the site, if you'd like.

Praying you are all at peace with your schooling and with the world around us this week. May God give us focus on the important things and let us cast aside the rest. As I tell my kids...let's love what God loves.

~Jenna

Week 9

Work on memorizing the linking verbs, so they can say/sing them on their way in to class this week.

*To the tune of Mary Had a Little Lamb

Feel, become, remain, and taste,
Seem, appear,
Look, sound, stay,
Smell, grow, am, are, is, was, were,
Be, being, been

For Writing:

~ Information about quality adjectives is found in:

1. AHBW book lesson 16.

3. SRN pages 28-34,77.

~ The recommended text is in lesson 14, but use any reference text

~ Take a section from a book you're reading. Identify the nouns and write in quality adjectives. This can also be done with verbs and adverbs and strong verbs. Do this

over several days instead of doing the writing assignment, especially if this is your first year. Use different colored pencils to make it more fun.

Week 8

I hope you guys had a great break! We had a nice family trip and are coming home tomorrow. 

We missed several of you in class on our last day. I'm including several things you can go over at home if you want to catch up. 

We went over Lesson 8 in our EEL guide. 

Our new part of speech was "prepositions" (chart J).

We also worked on compound, interrogative sentences. 

We went through "Charlemagne-Part 2" in our IEW book. 

No new dress-ups, but we wrote our KWO and paragraph together on the board. 

Definitely review Chart J, if you can. 

Here's a fun article about 20 English words we commonly misuse and how to properly use them.
http://qz.com/432285/20-misused-words-that-make-smart-people-look-dumb/

I look forward to seeing you all on Thursday!

Week 7

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made. John 1:1-3

Good morning, ladies! I included the above verse because it shows how God values language...so much that He refers to the one who became Jesus as "the Word". All things were created through "the Word", so words are powerful. Let's not grow weary in doing this good work of teaching our kids the intricacies of language. It has great value!

-You should be finishing up your paragraph on Charlemagne. Use checklist on bottom of p. 87

-Our new stylistic technique this week is the simile. 

-Try to review the Adverbs chart and the Nouns chart 

-Identify adverbs in your daily speech and reading

-Analytical Task Sheets begin on p. 129

Everyone is doing so great! Keep up the hard work! 

-Jenna

Week 6

Just a quick note. Wanted to include the School House Rock "Conjunction" song because it's fun.

At home: refer to pages 108-109 in your EEL Guide
My suggestions:
~ Copy and recite the charts.
~ Work through one to five sample sentences.
~ Look for the first two sentence patterns in your daily reading.
~ Identify conjunctions and compound sentences.
~ Optional: editing, punctuation, spelling exercises.
~ Visit the CC Connected Essentials Tier, if you are a member
~ Spend 20 - 30 minutes daily on this...no more.
~ Lesson 11 in IEW
~Write “Alfred the Great” paragraph

• Highlight everything from checklist p. 84 (including words from topic sentence and clincher that tell the topic of the paragraph)
• Strive to use as many stylistic techniques as possible, but don't let your kid be overwhelmed. If he/she uses a few, that will be fine. 

Also, if you have a set of multiplication flashcards, please bring those to class on Thursday.

Hope you are all preparing in case the hurricane comes our way. Kim will notify us all if there is any change in schedule, due to the storm. 

Have a great week!

Week 5

Grammar

-Review Charts A-F, as needed
-Point out Interrogative sentences in speech and as you read aloud
-Analytical Task Sheet, tasks 1-4 (shoot for 2 or 3 per week)


Writing

-Finish KWO for Lesson 10
-If time, write a paragraph (or 3) for the "Borrowing a Conflict" Lesson on p. 73
-New dress-up is "because clause"


Also, try to get some math drill practice in this week. My kids have enjoyed playing Multiplication War at home. This game is nice because all you need is a deck of cards. But any math practice that works for your kids will be great (flash cards, math board games, orally reciting times tables, copying times tables, etc.)

We will have our next DVD viewing Tuesday, September 27 at my house at 6 pm. 
I'll make some soup and tea we can all enjoy. 

See you tomorrow!

Great job on Week 4!

All you moms and kids are doing so well! Please let me know if you need clarification on any assignments or materials during the week.

If you are on Pinterest, feel free to follow my "Essentials Class" board. I post helpful tips and aids relevant to grammar, writing, and math. Here is a link:

https://www.pinterest.com/jenna_shea/essentials-class/?etslf=5536&eq=essent

Grammar:

-No new charts this week, so try to review any weaker ones. And of course, listen to your songs, if you can, which are basically charts in song form.

-Try to identify interjections with your kids, either in speech or books, signs, etc. (comic books have lots). Also, identify imperative sentences.

-Sample sentences for you Analytical Task Sheets begin on p. 84. Remember to walk the kids through tasks 1-4.

Writing:

-

-Refer to the checklist on p. 72 as you write your The Sword in the Stone paragraphs. They are striving to use one of each of the stylistic techniques we have learned in every paragraph. Also, trying not to use any banned words this week.

-It helps if you can put all the dress-ups, banned words, etc, on a white board or poster so you can refer to it while writing. It's also great to have all their reference lists handy (strong verbs, -ly adverbs, symbols for outlining).

See you Thursday!

-Jenna

Prepping for Week 4

I wanted to include a blog post I read this week about Essentials. It has some great practical tips for new and seasoned Essentials families, including a lot of lessons this mom has learned after going through the program for 6 years!

10 TIPS FOR SUCCESS WITH ESSENTIALS AT HOME

There was a segment of my lesson plan I was unable to cover due to time restrictions. I'm including it below for you guys to talk about at home.

• Now that we've shown the 5 types of Nouns, let's take a closer look at Personal Pronouns on Chart F, since we use these the most. There are 40 of them, which are determined by case, person, number, and gender.
• We've already noted that there are only three cases in English. 
• subjective
• objective
• possessive: however pronouns can take one of 3 forms when expressing possession.
• possessive pronoun
• possessive pronoun adjective
• reflexive: ends with "self" to show that the action affects the subject. (I hurt myself.)
• Personal pronouns, like verbs, show person; this is the perspective of the one doing or being what the verb expresses.
• "1st"; this is when the one speaking is the one being or doing something.
• "2nd" is when the audience (one being addressed) is the one being or doing.
• "3rd" is when someone else (neither the speaker or the audience) is being or doing something.
• And also like verbs, they show number. This is the number of the persons/things doing or being something. 
• "Singular": only 1.
• "Plural": more than 1.
• And they can show gender. 
• masculine
• feminine
• neuter

Here is a math game that helps hone multiplication skills. We will most like be trying it in class. I'm including the video in case you want to familiarize the kids with it before class. The operation could easily be changed to addition, also. 

Please, let me know if you have any questions or concerns. If your kid is having a hard time getting through 3 paragraphs this week, that's fine. Do 1 or 2 paragraphs. Y'all are doing great!

Preparing for Week 3

Good morning! I hope all of you made it through the storm ok. I know it's kind of a crazy week, with the storm and Labor Day, so just work on Essentials when you can and don't stress about it.  Here is your take-home sheet that I forgot to bring Thursday.

Prepping for Week 2

Wow! Great first day of class! I am so proud of all the kiddos and their participation level! It's difficult having class right after lunch, but they did a great job!

I threw a lot of information at them yesterday, and not all of it will stick and that's ok. Remember this is their first tour through Essentials, so have grace with them (and yourselves). It will all make more sense over the next several weeks of class.

Grammar

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: first year students should aim to memorize the bold parts/shaded parts of charts (not the whole chart). So for Chart A, that would include the patterns, structures, and purposes.

You will need to introduce Chart B at home. Just study the top left quadrant. These are simple, declarative sentences, with one of each of the 7 patterns.

Define subject and predicate for them.

Subject - the part of the sentence about which something is being said

Predicate - the part of the sentence that says something about the subject

Spend about 10 minutes a day reviewing Chart A and Chart B

If you have time, listen to those tracks from our first blog post. I will have cd's burned for next week.

Writing

Guide them through writing one paragraph from their outline (KWO). If you'd like to look at a checklist of what their paragraph should include, see page 21 in their writing book. You can help them as much as they need; they don't have to do it on their own.

I included their vocabulary words that correlate to each lesson, punctuation, capitalization, and spelling rules on your take-home sheet. It's up to you whether to teach these at home.

News

Alicia Kirkland has offered to host our next DVD viewing on September 6. More info and directions soon.

If you post any questions in the "comments" section below, I will respond quickly. Or you can text me at 386-965-1554

Have a great week!

Week 1

Before our first class...

I am so excited to start Essentials with you all this year.

As I'm preparing lesson plans, I wanted to give you guys a heads-up on a few items, just to get you prepped a little for our first class.

Our Essentials parent meeting will be August 12 at 5:30 at my house. Our address is 12390 Bass Rd. Here is a link to a google map.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1ynfa_2BZNg46Ow4-7DDVz_9k2Co&usp=sharing

I'll have some finger foods for us to enjoy. The meeting will probably go much smoother without kids (i.e. we will be able to have real, adult conversation) so if you can, arrange for childcare. Dads are welcome at the meeting, but as long as the main "teacher" is present, that'll be great. Here are a few things we will be discussing:

3 parts of Essentials
Looking at curriculum materials for each part of Essentials
Overview of EEL guide (grammar curriculum)
Student notebooks
IEW notebooks (writing curriculum)
Answering questions you might have

Please bring your Essentials of the English Language (EEL) guide and a big binder in which to store your guide. Here's a pic of mine. It looks like maybe a 2 1/2" binder. We can open up your guide and organize it into your binder at the parent meeting.

Here are a few topics we will be discussing in our first class. I have uploaded songs to google drive that will familiarize the kids with these ideas.

parts of speech
sentence patterns
4 purposes of sentences
parts of a sentence
subject and predicate

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7zTzghevU9UaHVuaWxoczFjS3c

If you have time to listen as a family, that is great. If not, that's ok. You can always listen to them after the first lesson.

I'll be posting an "About Me" blog in the next couple days, so you can get to know me a little better.

I am so excited! Let me know if you need anything!

-Jenna