This morning we began with our daily language review. This activity was enriched by discussing the “tense” of the sentences as well as their type. We looked at capitalization and punctuation in the closing of a friendly letter as well as discussed the literary element of cause and effect in one of the sentences. Additionally, we examined double negatives such as “doesn’t never”. We then read chapters 4 – 7 in our book, Dolphins at Daybreak. After each chapter, we worked through comprehension and critical thinking questions. We focused on the vocabulary terms peeping, defective, scram, and bobbed with our reading. We made predictions as we read and inferred as to why we thought the mini-sub was damaged even further. We discussed rereading when the sentence doesn’t make sense. Jonathan drew an illustration to reflect what he saw for one of the scenes in chapter 7. Additionally, we read a portion of the text in which the author used the literary device of repetition. The words calmly and calm were used multiple times in a small section of text. We discussed how the author’s use of repetition helps to provide emphasis on a particular item. In this case, we were reading how Jack and Annie were trying to say calm when escaping the mini-sub with the shark in the water. To enrich our literature topic, we read an article entitled Watery Wonders of the World which discussed the dives of an extreme diver who explores sinkholes, underwater caves, and icebergs. We read of some of her experiences and then watched a short supplemental video that showed us some of the animal life, islands, and icebergs of the world’s five oceans. For writing today, Jonathan continued working on his short story about a boy discovering that his pet can talk. We discussed features that his story needs to contain as well as a beginning, middle, and end. Jonathan began working on his story. He read the first few sentences to me and we discussed his overuse of the word “and”, which at many times was starting the sentence.