Week 22

Well my calendar says that the first day of spring is on Thursday, but I am having a hard time believing it!  I missed being with you all today, but I trust that you all had a great day in your warm homes going over week 22.  Lord willing we will all be back together next week for our final two weeks.  Please bring in the props you offered for our presentation practice next week:
Jessica - bow and arrow
Sydney - target
Kristen - large umbrella
I hope you all have a great week!  See you Tuesday.
Thanks,
Rhonda

Week 21

Great to be back with everyone today!  What a great opening we had with Naomi Bates, such a talented young lady.  Our first straw bridges building session was fun as students worked together in teams of 3 to construct a sturdy structure.  We will continue building next week.  Our first end of the year presentation practice went amazingly well.  We will use our presentation time for the next 3 weeks to fine tune it.  Please bring in the props you offered to bring next week:
Jessica - bow and arrow
Sydney - target
Kristen - large umbrella
I hope you all have a great week!  See you Tuesday.  Please contact me with any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Rhonda

Week 20

I missed being with you all today, but I trust that you had a great day at home!  Next week we will start practicing for our class presentation.  If you mentioned that you had a prop (megaphone, target, bow & arrow set) we could use, please bring it in next week if possible.  Stay warm! See you next week.  Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Rhonda

Week 19

We started off together for fine arts this morning learning about the Classical and Romantic Periods, the different instrument families, and putting our voices together to form "an orchestra."
After covering our New Grammar, we were entertained by some fabulous poetry presentations.  We spent a few minutes discussing ideas for our end of the year presentation and settled on Latin (using picture cue props to spice it up).  We ended our morning learning about the principles of flight and building paper airplanes for science.  Everyone selected their best model which will be "flown" in competition on week 24.  For the next two weeks we will be constructing straw bridges.  No presentations are due next week. I hope you all have a great week. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Rhonda

Week 18

Fun to have week 18 on the 18th!  It was also fun to have a little taste of spring today, especially given our weather last week.  We learned about and sampled some simple machines in science today.  Ask your child if they can name a few for you.  Our presentation time was spent exploring the world of poetry.  We talked about the history of poetry, different poetic devices (alliteration, rhyme, rhythm, simile, metaphor, etc.), and types of poems (limericks, haiku, couplets, etc.).  I read lots of different examples of poetry to them and we tried to memorize a poem by Isaac Watts together as a class.  Ask you student if they can recite it for you.  For next week, students should come prepared to recite or read a poem of their choice (I encouraged them to try and memorize a poem if possible).  They should concentrate on rhythm, inflection, and volume.

As we near the end of the semester, it would be helpful to know how many students are planning to test for memory master (or memory excellence and memory power).  If you could let me know that would be great.  I hope you all have a fabulous week and enjoy the warmer temperatures. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Rhonda

Week 17

Hope you all enjoyed the big snowfall!  I know my kids certainly did!  It was great to have everyone back together again.  We learned how to sew with a pattern, make cookies, finger knit scarves, create a stained glass painting, tie rock climbing knots, and curl your hair in our demonstrative speeches. Everyone did a great job.  No preparation necessary for this week as we will explore another type of presentation.  Hope you all have a great weekend.  See you Tuesday.  Please contact me if you have questions or concerns.
Rhonda

Week 16

Finally, a week without the threat of winter weather!  We discussed demonstrative speeches today and walked through the steps of putting together this type of presentation that focuses on verbally explaining how to do something.  We also spent time brainstorming some possible topics.  Please have students come prepared to share a 2-3 minute demonstrative speech with our class.  Props are welcome as long as the focus of the presentation remains on the language and not the props.  I hope you all have a great week.  Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns.
Rhonda