English
After the success of the last short composition piece, it was clear that there were a couple of next steps we needed to cover. The first was the quality of the sentence openers. We have looked at using two verb participles ‘-ed’, and ‘-ing’ and the adverbial suffix ‘-ly’ leading to the useful acronym, ‘ed-ing-ly’. We can use these endings to modify verbs in a more interesting way. E.g.
‘He looked out of the window.’
The verb (looked) is pulled to the front of the sentence and modified with ‘-ing’ .
‘Looking out of the window, ‘
Not only is the opener much stronger now, but the sentence invites further expansion leading to more detailed description.
Other things we have covered have been focused on the generation of the image which we have largely done by analysing the book, ‘Reckless’ and in particular, we have been studying the back story behind a character. We are using this to build towards the next descriptive work which will have more story telling elements than the previous one.
Really looking forward to that.
Maths
Algebra remains front and centre as we slowly unpick the difference between an equation and a formula, while learning to interpret different representations of missing numbers. The last couple of days for example, we have been looking at shapes being used to represent missing numbers which can take a little while to get one’s head around.
Others
In geography we have begun to peel back the layers of the earth and explore the mantle and its effects on the tectonic plates with a brief introduction into tectonic subduction. In science we have been looking at the relative sizes of the planets again but that got a bit ‘mathsey’ so we’ll have a rethink about that.
Cultural Reference Point Friday has left the 1920’s with a quick lesson in the basic steps of The Charlston and headed into the 1930’s.
