Friday, October 21, 2011

Poe, Conan Doyle, Fairwell Dear Alex!


Important Notice: If you have not registered for a conference via PTC please consult your email and sign up for a time. If you miss conference you will have to come in the following week to get your scholar's report card. It is vitally important that I get to meet with each of you for at least 10 minutes to properly assess where your scholar is in his/her journey through the beginning of middle school.

Our short week consisted of listening to two different versions of the short story the Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe....just enough to wet the palate of a number of young men in the room to read Poe's short stories around this time of year. We began our unit on the mystery genre and enjoyed the first Sir Arthur Conan Doyle short story of Sherlock Holmes and the Speckled Band. The scholars will be learning more about Doyle and we will we go over a couple more short stories for our read-a-loud time this coming week.

In math we are moving right along in our unit for multiplying and dividing fractions and decimals. We will have another quiz this next week and see if the scholars can be precise enough to earn pizza on Friday. We should be finishing up this unit by the first week of November.

We will also be finishing up Homer on Monday and the scholars will be writing their essays next week on just who their modern day hero is and why. We have studied heroes, superheros, myths, etc for the past month and now is their opportunity to write about a real person and why he or she is their hero. These are usually very touching as parents tend to be the focus. :)

For Literature Circles we will be moving into our next novel, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. This unit is a favorite, especially for the lords and ladies of the room. They will be choosing their "royal" names and be put through the proper training of chivalry. In fact, there is a whole section of proper chivalry for young ladies too, and they will be learning about how to properly handle themselves when amongst the lords of the suite. I enjoy this piece of literature at this time because it goes hand in hand with the Prince and the Pauper that we have already begun reading.

In History we are finishing up our Ancient Greece and Rome unit and will be testing that material on the 31st. Scholars should be reviewing the geography portion and their terms each night in preparation for this test. They will be required to label 10 of the 16 city states on their maps. They will be begin the review packet on Wednesday of next week as it is an extensive unit and will require some time to prepare.

Last week we lost yet another scholar. Alex Marshall will be moving to Phoenix, Arizona this weekend, and will be sorely missed by the class. He brought in treats on Wednesday and we enjoyed a game of dreidel and some Sherlock Holmes mystery before he left us. We are hoping to be able to have Alex join us for some science classes as soon as he gets his laptop at his new home. We will be keeping in touch!

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