Homework for September 29

Christie's group:

BOYS: Please finish your detailed outlines
GIRLS: Please write the first draft of paragraph 1

See you Saturday!

P.S. Graeme and I have talked about Halloween, and if it's ok with everyone, we'd like to hold our Halloween party a few days AFTER Oct 31 - in the evening on Saturday, November 3. No details have been decided yet, but put your thinking caps on! You guys will be planning the events!

P.P.S. Christie is going to be REALLY BUSY in October, so Graeme will be the main teacher for October 6 (Christie will be in California), October 13 (Christie & Sophie will be in Hamamatsu), and October 20 (Christie will be in Seoul, Korea).

Last week's fun

There was lots going on last Saturday! First, we had a few of visitors -

Sami will be joining the class pretty soon! (It was great to see Mom, too!)

Stripey's bilingualism is improving day by day...

And then Scott fired up the ice cream maker for a special treat:

Anxiously awaiting

Ready!

Mmmm ... sprinkles and chocolate sauce

sprinkles IN the bowl, Jojo!

A masterpiece...

Thanks to Sami, Junko, Stripey and Scott for the day's excitement!!

Updates!

1. This Saturday we're going to have 2 visitors! (Hint... 1 is very small...)
2. I heard something about a "cool" treat after the lesson ...

Homework for Saturday, September 22

Just a reminder that even though the 22nd is a national holiday, we are going to have Kidz Group as usual.

Christie's group - I'd like you to outline your mini essay for homework. Click here to get an outline handout that may help you to gather your ideas together. For your homework, please decide on the topic of each paragraph and think about what information you might like to use in the supporting sentences. You don't have to actually write the topic sentence or supporting sentences yet. Just write notes about your ideas to get started organizing the information.

See you Saturday!

To do for Saturday, September 15

Christie's group - please choose a topic for your mini essay. As we discussed, everyone is going to choose a topic related to nature and will write a 3-paragraph essay about it. We'll do the first couple of stages in the writing process first:

1. Choose a topic. These are some of the general topics we brainstormed today...

mosquitoes
leaf growth
flowers and how they grow
how rain happens
how thunder & lightning happens
where do rocks come from
how do earthquakes happen
how do tsunamis happen
what is dirt
about bears
how and why does poison oak or poison ivy make us itch
all about the corpse flower
what are falling stars
air

2. Brainstorm at least 5 questions about your topic. They should be things that you want to find out as you research your topic. They should be questions like these that we brainstormed for the corpse flower topic:

- Why does it smell bad?
- What does it smell like?
- Where does it grow?
- What does it look like?
- How often does it bloom?
- How does it multiply (seed? bulb?)

3. Do a little research on the internet. Try to find at least 2 points to answer each of your research questions. Make notes. Bring all your papers to class next time. Ren and Nozomi, I know you will be absent BUT I still want you to send me your homework by e-mail!!!

Have a good week...

First September meeting!

Hello, Kidz Group members!!

I hope you had a great summer... I guess everyone is back at school now, and it's time to get started with English, too!

As we discussed in our last class before the summer, let's do another BOOK REPORT this coming Saturday. The Provenzanos had a bit of a READING FRENZY while we were on various airplanes or at the lake... how about you? We are looking forward to sharing some information about the books we've read.

Please let Christie know if you will be able to come this Saturday, September 8 at our usual starting time.

(p.s. here's a hint about one series we were a little obsessed with over the summer!!)