The English Corner

     Good morning!  Looking back over April, we can be thankful for God's guidance and great provision!  The 7/8 Lit. students have read stories about family, containing many truths that resonate. One particular truth brought out was that the safest place in this world is in the center of God's will. The stories and poems both entertained and taught valuable lessons. We are now listening to (and analyzing) a reading of the book by Bob Jones titled Wine of Morning.  They will finish  out the year with an audio book of Ida Scudder. They have completed both their literature book and the vocabulary book! Good work, you guys!
     After concentrating on independent and dependent clauses in our grammar books for nearly two weeks, the 11/12 grade lit class conducted their own research on an author from the era of realists and naturalists in American literature.  At the end of a three week journey through the process of research, they wrote a thesis, then crafted their final research paper. By presenting their findings to the class, everyone was able to learn. They did a fantastic job with the process! We'll now move into modern American poetry, prose and a look at the American dream: fact or fantasy.
     Similarly, the 10th grade lit. class studied all about adjectives and adverbs for two weeks.  They then put it all into use as they researched a topic of their choice, wrote a thesis, then proved their thesis to be true through the information they had found, crafted into a research paper.  There were lots of areas of research, writing, documenting we covered that challenges any writer, and they did great through it all! Our last weeks will be filled with reading Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, so if your kids start putting "est" on the end of words as they talk at home...
     Quotation marks, periods, commas, ?, !  Where do they really go?  The 7/8 grade grammar has been working with punctuation, capitalization, and spelling rules, as well as a re-visit of pronoun/antecedent agreement. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi was pretty lively once these 7/8 graders added sound effects for the various punctuation marks...  They now get to focus on researching a topic of their choice, writing a thesis to prove, and, of course, finishing it all with a short research paper.  This last unit begins with a trip to the Wells County Public Library for a presentation of how to use the library as a resource for research, by Leah Baumgartner.
     The Family and Consumer Science class has covered a lot of ground.  They delivered the 24 infant burp cloths they made to the Helping Hands Pregnancy Resource Center.  Shawna gave us a tour/presentation of the center's purpose and services.  They were thrilled with the girls' donation. The final sewing project has begun: making a circle skirt.  It includes many of the sewing skills they have been learning throughout the unit.  We hope to have time to include our version of Chopped to top off last semester's foods portion of the class!
     Thanks to all who have helped, encouraged, prayed and otherwise been involved in any of my classes this year! I am truly grateful and appreciate each of you and your awesome kids. To God be the glory.
Mrs. Lemmen