Week 9 - The One Room School House and Verb Anatomy

Yesterday had to be one of my favorite days with my Essentials families!

From time to time, we combine our Essentials A and B classes.  Yesterday was one of those days!  So roughly twenty 9-12 year olds were under my direction as we reviewed, learned a little more about verb anatomy, practiced dressing up sentences, read papers, and had mental math challenge. 

The tutor intrepid, the energy incredible, the eagerness intoxicating, and the excitement interminable.

Students recite conjugations (what's that??). 

The simple, present tense of  To Play.

• I play
• You play
• He She It plays
• We play
• You (all) play
• They play

Now simple, past tense. Now simple, future tense.  We are conjugating the verb To Play! Now let's do the same for To Work.  No problem. A student names a verb - To Run.  Uh-oh! That's an irregular verb!  No problem, we can handle it!

Next students are asked to create sentences following a certain sentence pattern - then parse and diagram to make sure they did indeed create a sentence that followed the assigned sentence pattern. We chant the linking verb list, noting that the forms of the verb To Be are the most often used linking verbs. Students chant the preposition list while hopping on one foot.

Did I mention that many younger siblings were playing quietly in the back of the room?  ...hearing the chants.

We then flow into sentence modification - connecting dress-ups and sentence openers.  Students take one simple S-Vt-DO sentence and add adjectives, adverbs, prepositional phrases and even a few www.asiab and who/which clauses.  Older students are called on to help the younger students in several of these exercises.

We spend a few minutes reading papers, pointing out topic/clincher, and a few dress-ups heard.  Younger students benefit from hearing the more refined papers of older or 2nd/3rd  year students.

We work in a quick Mad lib, while students reference their resource notebook of adverbs and adjectives.  As students rustle the pages of their resource notebook - new words are being introduced their brain and ever expanding vocabulary. (I love community!)

Finally - it's mental math time!  With a lap whiteboard, younger student take notes as the series of numbers and operations are orally spoken.  Older students try to only write the answer on their board.  Quiet dialogue is allowed between students as they check each other and help catch careless mistakes.

Oh my! The two hours are gone!  Our time comes to a close.  Students and families work together to clean up the room ,vacuum, empty trash, set room in proper order, help me take items to my van, ... until next week...

And there you have it!  Twenty-three students and though varied in age, we learn together and encourage each other along the learning journey.  Just like the one-room school house of old.

Have a great week with language and words! And keep drilling those multiplication tables! :)