Week 1

Our first day of Challenge...WOW!!! It was such a joy and treasure getting to know your children today.  Thank you again for such a great opportunity and honor:)  It is always beautiful to see how God weaves a class together and to see how each person complements the group as a whole.   What  a neat experience!

 

Away we go.......

 

Rhetoric: Our time in rhetoric today was spent getting to know each other and going over the "rules".  We took prayer requests and encouraged each of them to pray for our class as a whole, and for the individual prayers requests. Homework is to read chapter one of Don't Check Your Brains and read chapter one of It Just Couldn't Happen.  You need to copy off pages 63 and 64 in your guide each week to fill out for It Just Couldn't Happen.  They also need to know Catechism Questions #1 - #3 found on page 60 of the guide.

 

Bible Based Writing: Today in class we reviewed how to make a keyword outline, and discussed how dress-ups make a paper look better.  We also talked about the writing process of planning, rough draft, and final.  Homework is Lessons #3 in our BBW book. Whether the paper is typed or handwritten is totally up to you, and I would like to see the checklist stapled to the final draft.  I did tell the children, if they were told not to write in their books, not a problem.  I will always make copies :)

 

Geography: In class we talked about different ways we could practice drawing our maps.  (tracing paper, graph paper, free hand, making shapes...alike cloud watching, folding our paper into sections) I handed out Geography terms notebooks.  Each week we will add terms to our "dictionary".  This week we did the terms together.  They can be found on pages 90 - 93 of the guide.  They need an example for each term as well as the definition. This week we need to practice drawing the United States and know our capitals.  (If this seems daunting, set your timer each day.  Literally 15 minutes here and 15 there...it WILL add up :) Also, I printed out a map onto graph paper.  Then they could use that copy onto another piece of graph paper.  If you would like the PDF to do this, just let me know:)

 

Science: Today we talked about how to fuse our notes into one outline.  I also handed out a "cheat sheet" for a bibliography.  Homework this week is to research Protista: protozoa and algae to be precise.  Sketch a picture, and write a short report on just the facts.  A bibliography is a must.  I encouraged them to use non-internet sources when possible.  I also gave them some freedom here to get a little creative.  They are allowed to be general or specific, whichever interests them. 

 

Latin: I think it entertained them when I agreed Latin was indeed a dead language..but I did emphasize still USEFUL!  We went over the Latin alphabet, consonants, and diphthongs.  We talked about Nouns; the fives cases, 3 genders, and 5 declensions.  This week only focusing in on the first declension.  We briefly went through the vocabulary word up to page 15.  Homework in Latin is to complete pages 1 through 15.  Memorize the vocabulary words.  (They can make their own flash cards) Memorize the 1st declension noun chart.  I also gave them a worksheet to decline 3 nouns. 

 

The first week is A LOT of information.  Please, if you have any questions at all, email me or give me a call. I am more then happy to answer any and all questions.  I hope this week is the beginning of a wonderful school year for both you and your child!