Week 9

We changed up our schedule this week and saved review for a mega game at the end of the day - it was a lot of fun!  Here are the nuts and bolts for the coming week....

DEVOTION:

Ms. Thoma presented on self-control (Galatians 5:24-25).  When we get back, Mr. Markel will talk about discretion (Proverbs 22:3), and the following week we'll have Ms. Jones lead us on tolerance (Philippians 2:2). 

LATIN:

We're moving onto Lesson 9 - conjugating verbs!  Remember:

* VERBS CHANGE THEIR FORM TO EXPRESS DIFFERENT:
TIME (TENSE) (played = past; am playing = present; will play = future)
PERSON            (I play; he plays)
NUMBERS        (he plays; they play)

* When we study nouns, need to know the genitive case because gives us the stem for the word.  When we study verbs, we must learn the 4 PRINCIPAL PARTS OF A VERB:

1.  1st person singular present indicative active (laudō, I praise)

2.  Present infinitive active (laudāre, to praise)

3.  1st person singular perfect indicative active (laudāvī, I praised)

4.  Perfect participle passive (laudātus, having been praised)


*  The PRESENT INFINITIVE ACTIVE (laudāre) shows us which conjugation a verb belongs to.

* All verbs whose present infinitive active ends in  -ĀRE  belong to the FIRST conjugation.

* Finally, verbs must agree with subject in PERSON & NUMBER (e.g., Marīa ōrat. / Maria prays.)

Continue to work on the Mastery Review Vocabulary List for Units 1 and 2 (p. 91-98 in the purple book).  :)

LTW:

First, we have an extra week - please * USE IT *  :) to make sure you read, finish, and most importantly, ENJOY reading The Hiding Place, by Corrie Ten Boom.  This is a very powerful book that will influence and strengthen your faith and biblical worldview.  Don't rush through the book or save it to the last minute.  I think this is the most important book of the year for you to savor....Teachers, if you have not read it, you should take time to do so as well.  It's truly one of the most powerful stories I have ever read!

Now back to class...students shared their exordium, division, and proofs.  We also learned about antithesis, which they will incorporate somewhere in their essays this week, using essay template #5:

I. INTRO

A. Exordium

B. Division

1. Agreement

2.  Disagreement

a. Thesis

b. Counter-thesis

C. Distribution

1. Thesis

2. Enumeration

3. Exposition

a. Proof 1

b. Proof 2
           c. Proof 3

I look forward to listening to your essays - you have some great theses!  Don't forget to include:

- parallelism,
- amplification,
- exordium,
- division, and 
- antithesis!

You may notice the guide also tells you to include a simile.  This might be a typo, since we have not discussed similes this year yet (we will in a few weeks for our next paper!).  If you really want to impress us, you can try to fit one into next week's essay!  :)

sim·i·le -- an explicit comparison of two things different in kind but sharing a common characteristic; it uses words like "as" and "like" to make the comparison.  E.g., cute as a kitten, busy as a bee, blind as a bat, they fought like cats and dogs, watching the show was like watching grass grow.

LOGIC:

We dove into new lessons this week (#23-26), and things are getting interesting!  In lesson 24, Mr. Nance challenges the students to work through the 256 possible forms of syllogisms (appendix B) to determine which 24 are valid and which 232 are invalid. We worked through a chunk of them, testing by counterexample.  If you would like to watch Mr. Nance solve the entire challenge, he does it here: http://logiccurriculum.com/2016/10/13/challenge-accepted/

Over the next two weeks, continue to work on the new vocabulary, reread the lessons, and finish working through any exercises you didn't finish last week.

What's Ahead?  After break, we'll move on to lessons 27-29 (for only one week), then lessons 30-32 (two weeks), and finally, lessons 33-36 (for one week and then the semester ends!).

Since you have extra time before we meet again... ;) Here is a challenge for anyone interested to try - you can bring your answers to class:

Einstein's Riddle
(Supposedly, Einstein wrote this riddle and said that 98% of the world could not solve it.)

The situation:
- There are 5 houses in five different colors.
- In each house lives a person with a different nationality.
- These five owners drink a certain type of beverage, smoke a certain brand of cigar, and keep a certain pet.
- No owners have the same pet, smoke the same brand of cigar, or drink the same beverage.

The question is:  Who owns the fish?

Hints:
- the Brit lives in the red house
- the Swede keeps dogs as pets
- the Dane drinks tea
- the green house is on the left of the white house
- the green house's owner drinks coffee
- the person who smokes Pall Mall rears birds
- the owner of the yellow house smokes Dunhill
- the man living in the center house drinks milk
- the Norwegian lives in the first house
- the man who smokes blends lives next to the one who keeps cats
- the man who keeps horses lives next to the man who smokes Dunhill
- the owner who smokes BlueMaster drinks beer
- the German smokes Prince
- the Norwegian lives next to the blue house
- the man who smokes blend has a neighbor who drinks water

MATH:

For our lesson review, we discussed variables and evaluating (i.e., "finding the value of") them, adding and subtracting mixed numbers, and Order of Operations:

1. Multiply in order from left to right.

2. Add and subtract in order from left to right.

Keep reviewing your multiplication facts and Basic Math Facts!

SCIENCE:

Next week - we share our Science Shoeboxes!  I brought my shoebox on Hippocrates to class this week so the students could see an example.  There are also guidelines on p. 180 of your Guide.

Remember, use the contents of your box (at least 3-5 items) as clues to a riddle that we are to solve.  You will also make a bio card for your scientist (discussed on p. 180) and place it underneath your shoebox.  We'll first see how many scientists we can figure out without reading the bio card.  I'll have a form for you to write on - think of this part as a practice quiz for your timeline....Include as much information about each scientist as you would like to show off!  :)

We are also researching our final scientist in our History of Science studies: Albert Einstein! Your specific task is to provide a simple one- or two-minute explanation of Einstein's theory of special relativity both by definition and by example.  For your presentation, you will not be reading a paper, but you are allowed to use notecards.  The process of winnowing down your notes will help ensure you understand what you are talking about.  You are studying a REALLY complex idea - it took a genius, after all, to figure it out!  There are quite a few resources online to help you - try googling "Einstein's theory of special relativity for kids".

Finally, you only have one more week after our next class to come up with an idea for your science fair project, so spend some time over our "break" looking into that, too.  :)

CURRENT EVENTS:

In class, students divided into two groups and outlined presentations on either side of the issue:  Should the United States allow women to serve in combat roles?  We created an ANI chart during their presentations, then continued the discussion afterwards.  You did a great job this week of expanding on your proofs.  We also reviewed a few big holes in their arguments and how they might tighten those up next time.

We'll follow the same format next week: find one affirmative article and one negative article for our premise, write a notecard for each article outlining three proofs, an exordium, and an amplification for each side, and take notes or highlight your articles to show more detail and explanation for your proofs.  

We then had a great conversation about several issues in this year's election, and spent time talking about the Electoral College.  We considered several premises for next class, including whether Christians should abstain from voting in the 2016 presidential election and whether Donald Trump/Hillary Clinton is fit to be president.  Ultimately, the class voted unanimously to research the question:  Should the president be elected by popular vote instead of the electoral college?

For class, make sure to bring:

- both articles and notecards (with exordium, 3 proofs, an amplification, and subproofs or further support for your proofs - written down or highlighted in your articles), and

- a relevant Bible verse on this topic. 

We will also introduce issues surrounding human rights issues (North Korea, China, Iran, Syria, Cuba, etc.).  Our premise the following week will be Whether the United States should financially support countries that persecute Christians?

POSTREMO:

* Don't forget - no class next Monday!  Enjoy the break, and make sure to read and ruminate on The Hiding Place!

* How many of you have been taking a Mindful Moment each week in the strand mentioned in your guide?  Page 43 explains what a Mindful Moment is, and each week your guide directs you to do this in a particular strand.  This week, it's math.  Try it!  :)

* Finally, don't forget to be praying for each other's prayer requests - and I appreciate your prayers next week while half of my family is in Juarez, Mexico, and the other half is here in Colorado!

See you on October 31!