Oct. 15, 2007 - wk 6 (N-4)
October 8-12, 2007
Our read aloud this week is The Cat of Bubastes by G. A Henty, which coordinates with JJ’s Ancient History lessons.
Monday, Part 1
I forgot to use the timer today, so I don’t have an accurate time for our activities.
WARM-UP SE read the phonogram cards (sounds only) and beat her record by 10 seconds. The children took a quiz on their review words and the multiletter phonograms listed in the preliminaries for N-4. We reviewed all the spelling rule cards for the rules we know thus far.
Monday, Part 2
REFERENCE PAGE Per the instructions in the WG on pg 106, I introduced the ER page today. On pages 5-6 in our Learning Logs, we wrote the words from the guide sentence, “Her church first worships early (and) adjourns.” The children were curious about the word “adjourns” as they have never been introduced to this multiletter phonogram yet. We then added words from lists N-1 through N-3 which included the ER, UR, and EAR phonograms. We added “thirst” to the IR column, per my daughter’s request, and “worm” to the WOR column, just for fun. By looking at the lists Wanda has compiled for us on pp 139-140 in SWR, I was able to quickly determine which words we had covered in N-1 through N-3 that included the appropriate phonograms. What a time saver!
Monday, Part 3
DICTATION of the first ten words (#840-850) in N-4 followed. We had much better concentration today. On two of the easier words toward the end of the list, JD was eager to help dictate. I allowed him to get up and play “teacher” for the group. He did an outstanding job with fingergrams (actually using them in the left-to-right sequence for his audience), and asking all of the appropriate dialogue of his “students.” This indicates to me that he is doing a great job internalizing the dictation pattern. It was also a nice treat for him to have this special honor.
A POST-TEST on these words was next. Since everyone got 100% on this test, no words needed to be added to the word banks today.
Monday, Part 4
REINFORCEMENT We added three words from today’s list to the ER chart in the appropriate columns.
Because we were short on time today, we did not do a McCall-Crabbs reading nor did the children write sentences. I knew they would be disappointed about missing the reading, but I was surprised when they complained about not being able to write sentences. “Could they be enjoying this writing practice?” their mother pondered incredulously!
Our lesson today took approximately 45 minutes.
Tuesday, Part 1
WARM-UP The children practiced reading the phonogram cards with the full spelling dialogue. They each took turns reading the cards, one after another. (5:55) We practiced reading all the rule cards. (3:25) The children took a warm-up quiz on the review words and yesterday’s spelling words for a total of 20 items. (8:30)
Tuesday, Part 2
DICTATION I dictated the first ten words of Section N-4 (#851-860) and we reviewed the words from the board before erasing them. (19:00)
A POST-TEST on the new words immediately followed. (3.30)
Tuesday, Part 3
REINFORCEMENT The children wrote any words they missed on either the warm-up quiz or the post-test in their word banks. We added (1) the advanced phonogram QU (/k/) to our Multiletter phonogram page, and (2) the ER words from our new word list to the ER page. The children wrote all 20 of the new spelling words in sentences, using the question format (see WG pg 107). They had a lot of fun with this, and we read everyone’s questions aloud for all to enjoy. (20-30 min)
Today’s lesson took approximately an hour.
Wednesday, Part 1
WARM-UP We started by having JD read all the phonogram cards, sounds, only. He beat his time and set a new record. (1:11) The children took a warm-up quiz on their review words. (8:00)
Wednesday, Part 2
REINFORCEMENT Per the instructions in the Preliminaries for List N-4 (WG pg 106), I introduced the 1-1-1 Reference Page. (See SWR pp 156-157) Following the instructions in SWR on page 157, we added the words “get” through “row” to our Learning Logs, and then worked through the questions to decide whether we would double our last consonant when creating the derivatives. (38:00)
Wednesday, Part 3
REINFORCEMENT I dictated the A-I review words listed at the top of WG pg 107 and the N-4 words while the children wrote these down the left side of a page in their spiral notebooks. They then added the suffix -ing to each word to practice the 1-1-1 and other rules we’ve been learning. (15:00)
The students added words they missed on the A-I review list dictation to their word banks. These words have now been added to our review list.
We finished with a McCall-Crabbs reading. (6:30)
Today’s lesson took a bit over an hour.
Thursday, Part 1
WARM-UP We started with JJ reading the phonogram cards, sound only. He was unable to beat his record today. (1:31) The students took a warm-up quiz on 10 review words. (5:00)
Thursday, Part 2
REINFORCEMENT I introduced the Plus Endings page. (See SWR pp 171-173) Per the instructions in SWR on page 172, we added the four words included in the row entitled “After N-3” and their listed derivatives. (10:00) Then I dictated the N-4 and A-I review words while the children once again wrote them down the left column of a page in their spiral notebooks. We folded the page into fourths, and at the top of the 2nd - 4th columns wrote the same column titles found on the Plus Endings page. The children then wrote each word with an -ing or -ed suffix ending. Wow! What an incredible activity. This really drove home all of these rules we’ve been learning, and the children were quiet and industrious while completing it. This is a definite repeat activity! (30:00)
Today’s lesson was about 50 minutes in length.
Friday, Part 1
WARM-UP SE read the phonogram cards, sounds only, but was unable to beat her time. (1:30)
Friday, Part 2
END-OF-THE-WEEK TEST The children took a test on the Section N-4 words and all review words they have collected thus far. They did very well! (13:00)
Friday, Part 3
REFERENCE PAGE We had an abbreviation in this week’s word list (mkt = market). Therefore, we returned to this page in the back of our Learning Logs [B25] and added all the abbreviations from “1st” through “mkt.” (See SWR pg 133) (5:00)
Friday, Part 4
REFERENCE PAGE In preparation for next week’s list, we worked on the Numbers Page [B15]. I followed the instructions in SWR pg 100 in order to figure out which words were already covered in Sections A-M and which we would want to add to our Logs at this time. We added all of the words from “six” through “thousand” as well as the months “July” through “October” and the days of the week. My goal is to add each month to this list as we come to it over the year. I also need to remember to quiz the children on these words periodically. We also added any words from this page that included any of the ER phonograms to that page in our logs. (27:00)
Today’s lesson took approximately 45 minutes.
Application in other writing activities
Today our writing class had a lesson on using strong verbs and -ly words (adverbs) in order to dress-up our writing. The children were given some sentences to complete with the required elements. My daughter wrote the sentence, “Jesus readily dragged his cross to Calvary.” She called me over to show me that she had correctly written a 1-1-1 word!
Also, the children ask when they write their sentences if they can receive extra credit for using past tense verbs, 1-1-1 words, plurals, etc. The work we are doing in spelling is transitioning to other activities!
