Week+Three

Latin-- There are no new vocabulary words this week, but please continue drilling the 50 words we have been given. There is a quiz on week five. I will provide the quiz in class. For those who have the quiz booklet that goes along with the text, please use it as a practice quiz if you wish. BBW- We begin a creative writing unit this week. Since our text contains Bible stories, it can feel somewhat inappropriate to change the details as the students are given the liberty to do in this particular unit. If you want your student to use the BBW source texts, that is fine. I told them in class that they could select a fairy tale or most any familiar story with a recognizable plot as a basis for their writing. They will keep the basic story line but change details to make it unique. It is still VERY important that they carefully READ and PRACTICE the dress-ups described in the BBW text and use the LEVEL B check sheet at the end of lesson 7 to determine which dress-ups to use. At this beginning stage of using the dress-ups, I feel that it is easiest to add the dress-ups to a "cleaned up" rough draft by just going down the dress-up list and looking for appropriate places to insert them in the writing. Geography--WOW!!!!! They have made impressive progress in three weeks! I'm amazed by their map tests. I'll return those next week. They have two weeks to master Canada--test on week 5. Also, could you ask your student to find current events topics (one national, one international) he/she would like to investigate and bring those ideas to class next week. It would be great if we had a wide assortment of their interests and could coordinate discussions with each geographical area we are studying. We'll see if we can do that with the interests they present next week. Encourage your students to memorize those geo terms and rhetoric catechism. We have enough items now to begin playing review games :) A word about the progress sheets I send home-- if an item is not marked, as several weren't marked this week, that most likely means that we didn't have an opportunity to do that item in class, not that your child didn't participate. I'll let you know if there are any concerns. So far, I am amazed at their progress. ALL of them are EXTREMELY polite, well-behaved, motivated students. I hope they enjoy class, learn lots, and make good friends.  Please let me know if you have suggestions or ideas for improvement in any area of what we're doing. I enjoy your input and questions because they make it better for everyone :) In your service, Cara ||
 * Math--Saxon 8/7--Remember to take a test after lesson 10. Your student may bring a checked test to class if you'd like so that I can see their progress.