New Concepts & Where We Are Headed

On Thursday we started our class by participating in a fire drill. Because of the loss of class time, I was not able to cover everything as in depth as I would have preferred. I'm very sorry.


Although I introduced helping verbs with the jingle and irregular verbs with the chart, we did not have time to "label" a sentence with a helping verb. The new label is HV. There is not a new question in the Q&A flow for helping verbs, your children simply need to memorize them. (Hey, they know the 49 prepositions now! The 23 helping verbs are doable also!)

Below is the first Ch.8 sentence with the correct labels and the Q&A that goes with it. Please do these orally with your kids if they seem to be having trouble. Your children were all given a chart with all of the label abbreviations and their definitions. This should help you as well. (Can you believe how much we have covered? I am amazed as I type this!)

Sentence: Our choir has been singing softly for the children at the hospital.
1.) Who has been singing softly for the children at the hospital? choir - SN (Subject Noun)
2.) What is being said about the choir? choir has been singing - V Verb)Note - There are three verbs. Singing is the main verb and will be labeled with a V. Has and been are helping verbs in front of singing and will be labeled with an HV.
3.) Has - HV (Helping verb) - Write HV above the word has.
4.) Been - HV (Helping verb) - Write HV above the word been.
5.) Has been singing how? Softly - Adv. (Adverb)
6.) For - P (Preposition)
7.) For Whom? children - OP (Object of the Preposition)
8.) The - A (Article Adjective)
9.) At - P (Preposition)
10.) At What? Hospital - OP (Object of the Preposition)
11.) The - A (Article Adjective)
12.) Whose Choir? Our - PPA (Possessive Pronoun Adjective)
13.) Pattern - SN V P1 (Subject Noun, Verb - Pattern One)
14.) (For the children) - prepositional phrase ()
15.) (At the hospital) - prepositional phrase ()
16.) Period, Statement, Declarative Sentence
17.) Go back to the verb - divide the complete subject from the complete predicate with a slash mark

PPA SN HV HV V ADV P A OP P A OP
SN V P1 Our choir / has been singing softly (for the children) (at the hospital). D

(The labels will not line-up directly over the words on the blog - sorry! Each label sits over one word in the sentence following the order listed.)

Another tricky label introduced this week is the word "NOT." NOT is typically an adverb answering the question "how." Many negative words are adverbs telling "how" and "to what extent."

Label the word not - ADV. For example - Sandy is not singing in the play. is-HV not-ADV singing-V

HAVE NO FEAR, I WILL COVER ALL OF THIS ON THURSDAY!! However, I would like for your children to finish all of the Ch. 8 material b/c these are the only new grammar concepts. At this point, they should be able to label the rest of the sentences with their knowledge to this point.

Finally, children will have a test on Thursday to list all 49 prepositions and label a sentence. This is so I can gauge their progress. We are moving very quickly now, but I know your incredible kids are ready!

Buckle your seat belts! It's going to be a FUN ride!

I sincerely hope to see all of your children back next semester. By the end of next semester, we will progress in our writing to 3 - 5 point paragraph essays, persuasive papers, friendly letters and occasional poetry. We will also be exposed to MUCH MORE GRAMMAR! There will be several more sentence patterns, Verb-transitive and Verb-intransitive forms, direct objects, compound nouns and verbs, interjections, conjunctions, and differing verb tenses. Finally, we will cover many punctuation and capitalization rules with increased exposure to editing.

I hope this helps you! Thanks a million!