Hank was asked about prior composition experiences. He was given the opportunity to showcase his recently written informative piece by reading it aloud. Student was happy to do so. Student was able to describe the purpose of an informative piece.

We discussed other purposes for written pieces. We explored entertainment pieces and dissected the elements of compelling entertainment pieces. Hank was guided through a creative "brainstorming" session. He recorded his ideas on a chart. He drew a visual representation of a character that he created and will describe in a written format in future sessions.

Ryan and I continued learning types of sentences and practiced with our review sheets. Then I had Ryan create his own sentences practicing all four kinds and using correct punctuation. With every activity we did today, I asked Ryan to explain the rules and the philosophy behind his answers. I feel that Ryan has a solid foundation to start 9th grade English. We will continue after he gets settled in his new school.

Ryan did wonderfully today! We worked on clauses, sentences and fragments and the different types of sentences: simple, complex, compound and compound/complex. We will continue this lesson and work on punctuation and how to avoid comma splices and run-ons next session.

Ryan and I reviewed parts of speech and subjects and predicates as review from the beginning of the summer. Ryan completed exercises and remembered most of the concepts. He also took notes and is formulating a packet to keep with his English binder this year in his 9th grade class.

Ryan and I are reviewing and practicing all of the basic foundational elements of grammar and syntax. We are discussing the functions of different parts of speech and the roles they play in syntax. My plan is to move onto subjects and predicates, which we started today, and then clauses, sentences and fragments. We will move onto more complex sentence structure, which I will have Ryan practice as we move forward. From my experience, this is a key skill that can hinder students when they get into high school if they are not prepared. Ryan's homework (just for fun) is watch School House Rocks' Grammar Rocks video (about an hour and can be found on YouTube ) with his friends. He's never seen it and I find this helps students remember.

Ryan is going into a new school for 9th grade this coming school year. We are prepping him so that he is ready with the skills needed for 9th grade. This session, we met for the first time, discussed Ryan's interests, and his strengths and weaknesses in English. We made a plan and set goals for the rest of the summer. We will be working on strengthening basic grammar, sentence structure and writing convention skills. I believe Ryan is a bit behind in these areas. Ryan also would like to work on his handwriting this summer. I am currently looking for some short reading texts with cars and auto mechanics as the subject area. This is Ryan's passion. This will allow me to assess his reading comprehension skills. No homework for this session.

Baylie reviewed writing with adjectives. The articles (a, and, the) and demonstratives (this, that, these and those) were presented. Baylie had to select the correct form of several adjectives (adding the suffixes -er and -est or using more and most) to complete the given sentences. Great work Baylie!

Baylie began the session by reading and correcting the spelling of the words from the pretest of this week's words. Next she chanted each of the words and read sentences using the words. Challenge words were read by Baylie and the meanings were reviewed. The final aspect of the lesson required Baylie to write her spelling words in alphabetical order.

Netra and I annotated two short stories, and then outlined and drafted a 1000 word essay on how two short stories displayed a cultural problem in society.

Today, Rory completed her grammar unit with a quiz.