Today in Grammar we discussed the difference between common and proper nouns. The girls then tested their understanding by playing Noun Charades. A student chose a noun from a bag, told her team whether it was a common or proper noun and whether it was a person, place, thing, or idea. She then acted out the noun and her teammates tried to guess what it was. Enjoy these video highlights of the game!
Do YOU know what the answers are??
We have been studying Ancient Egypt this week in history. As part of our study, the girls have been labeling and coloring a map of Ancient Egypt. Here are pictures of a few girls hard at work.
Enjoy this week's riddles!
On Thursday, a 9-A student brought in a chrysalis containing a monarch butterfly. The chrysalis was an opaque green color. Unfortunately, I did not get a picture of the chrysalis in that stage. By Friday morning, the chrysalis had become completely clear (See picture below) and I knew the butterfly would soon emerge.
Sure enough, at the beginning of my second reading class a student glanced at the chrysalis and noticed that the butterfly’s wings were beginning to emerge. Within about 20 seconds (The time it took me to grab the camera and turn it on) the butterfly had emerged completely and began moving about the habitat.
By the end of reading class, the butterfly had made its way to the top of the cage and was completely still. It stayed on this leaf for the rest of the school day, waiting for its wings to dry.
We have been using the laptop cart in Reading! Earlier this week we read
Akiak by Robert Blake. The story is about a sled dog who is running in her seventh Iditarod! The girls and boys have been researching sled dog racing on the Scholastic website in preparation for writing a persuasive essay on the morality of sled dog racing. They were quick to point out that while sled dog racing provides dogs with an opportunity for exercise, dogs can also suffer injuries when running such far distances. They have enjoyed discussing both sides of the argument. Today, the students became pros at navigating the Scholastic website as well as a PowerPoint presentation with embedded hyperlinks. They even learned how to switch back and forth between the PowerPoint and the webpage! The students enjoyed using technology very much and I will be sure to incorporate the laptop cart into future reading lessons!
Yesterday the entire Ninth Age went out on the blacktop to test our cave tools. After taking a few group pictures, the girls got a chance to use their cave tools to break ice cubes. What fun!!
Above are the 9-A riddles of the week. A few astute girls have already figured out the purple and blue ones! Check out the picture, think about it, and talk with your family about it over dinner…But remember, “Google-ing” is cheating =)
Today the girls learned about the four kinds of sentences. They learned that a
telling sentence makes a statement and ends with a period, an
asking sentence asks a question and ends with a question mark, an
exclamatory sentence shows strong feeling and ends with an exclamation point, and a
request/command sentence tells someone to do something and ends with a period. After reviewing the four types of sentences, the girls were each assigned to write a certain kind of sentence on a small piece of paper. They then crumpled up their paper and threw it towards my pink chair in the front of the room. After everyone threw her paper, the girls came forward and chose a ball of crumpled paper. They read the sentence and proceeded to the corner of the room that was labeled with the type of sentence that they were holding. Once everyone was in a corner, the girls read their sentences aloud. The video below illustrates the organized chaos that ensued.
We have been studying cave people in history. This week, the girls were asked to bring in a stick no longer than their arms and a rock no bigger than their fists. The only information I gave them was that they would use these objects to make cave tools. Today they used about 4 feet of twine to attach the rock to the stick. Many girls thought that this would be easy, only to find that twenty minutes later they still had only a rock, a stick, and a piece of twine. Eventually, with some teamwork, each girl ended up with her very own cave tool. See the slide show below for highlights of the process. Check back next week for pictures of the girls testing out their cave tools!
A few parents asked for more information about the books and article that Mr. Martire mentioned during the general session at Parents’ Night. I have read all three and would strongly recommend them to all parents. In addition, the author of
Girls Will be Girls (click here for more info), JoAnn Deak, spoke to the faculty before the school year started. I can honestly say that it was the best professional development session I have ever attended. She compared children’s brains to a pile of rubber bands. All children are born with different sized rubber bands. For example, one child may have a long, stretchy “math” rubber band and a shorter “musical” rubber band, while another may have a long, stretchy “spelling” rubber band and a shorter “math” rubber band. The longer the rubber band, the more easily that skill is learned and mastered. The shorter the rubber band, the more work it takes to develop proficiency in that area. It is important for children to know that THEY CANNOT CONTROL THE SIZE OF THE RUBBER BANDS THEY WERE BORN WITH but that THE CAN CONTROL WHAT THEY DO TO INCREASE THE SIZE AND STRETCH OF ALL OF THEIR RUBBER BANDS. Hard work can stretch the size of a small rubber band until it becomes a medium rubber band, or even a big one.
This idea runs along the same lines as the
article by Carol Dweck. She stresses that telling children they are smart can actually be detrimental to the learning process. When these children encounter something that is hard, they tend to give up instead of persevering. Instead, teachers and parents should praise children for how hard they work. This kind of praise motivates children to work even harder. When they encounter something that is hard for them, they are more likely to keep at it until they succeed.
The other book,
Boys Adrift by Leonard Sax, focuses on “the five factors driving the growing epidemic of unmotivated boys and underachieving young men.” If you have a son, this book is a must-read.
Today we had our first grammar lesson of the year. We discussed the qualities of a complete sentence and I introduced the terms
subject and
predicate to the girls. They learned that a subject tells whom or what the sentence is about and a predicate tells what the subject is or does. Then each girl received an index card with either a subject or a predicate on it. The class walked around the room reading the cards to each other until each child found a match that completed her sentence in a way that made sense. Below is a video of the pairs reading their complete sentences. Be sure to turn your volume up; we have some quiet speakers in 9-A!
On the first day of school, the girls posed for pictures. I used those pictures to create a silhouette of each child. The girls were very good at identifying their classmates. Can YOU tell who is who??
At the end of the day, the butterfly moved to the top of the habitat. It's wings seemed to be almost completely dry. It began slowly opening and closing its wings in preparation to venture out into the world!
Above are the 9-A riddles of the week. A few astute girls have already figured out the purple and blue ones! Check out the picture, think about it, and talk with your family about it over dinner…But remember, “Google-ing” is cheating =)
