Pilgrim's Progress

Seventh graders begin reading The Pilgrim's Progress today. Those students who were here in the fourth grade were privileged to read a children's version, but today, we start Pilgrim's Progress in Today's English. The length is about the same, though some of the more archaic language is updated.

"Why We should read The Pilgrim's Progress" is an interesting article about how Pilgrim's journey is our journey.

Homonyms

Homonyms are words that sound the same but have different meanings.

haul--hall---------pale--pail-----------rain--rein--reign

This week's spelling words for grades 6, 7, and 8 are all homonyms.

For some fun games, see these sites:

FunBrain

Concentration at Quia

Self-Study Homonym Quizzes

To help you with your study, a list of short definitions of many homonyms is found here.

GeoBee, anyone?

Check out the new link under Geography in the sidebar.

See how many questions you can complete!

Memorization

For any parents reading (kids, go get you parent and have them read this!), you will be interested to know the selections your child has memorized as a group during our classes this year.

Memorization is an important tool in a student's life. Memorization causes students of begin to appreciate language and the sound it makes when it is carefully constructed. Also, students have young minds which can make memorization especially easy andthe ability to recall memorized material decades later. The article, "In Defense of Memorization," is particularly helpful and interesting to read.

All three grades (6th, 7th, and 8th) learned "Ideas have Consequences" which is found in the sidebar. Since we are reading The Hobbit in the sixth grade, they worked on ten stanzas from "Over the Misty Mountains Cold" as the seventh grade memorized "A Mighty Fortress is our God" and a small part of Martin Luther's famous speech before the Diet of Worms. Both sixth and seventh grades learned "The Night has a Thousand Eyes" and "The Vulture." The next memorization selection for both grades is "The Quality of Mercy" from Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice.

The eighth graders memorized "The Charge of the Light Brigade" and has begun to work on "The Gettyburg Address."

More selections are ready and waiting for the rest of the year!

The Hobbit, Chapter 8: Flies and Spiders

Do these pictures make you think of the "Flies and Spiders" chapter?

These are incredible webs!