Atticus and I reviewed our recent lessons on understanding percents, relating fractions, decimals, and percents, and representing percents greater than 100 or less than 1 before he completed a mid-chapter check on these concepts. Then, Atticus worked online solving word problems by converting percents, fractions, and decimals. For homework, he was assigned practice and problems solving questions related to percents less than 1.
Atticus reviewed and wrote down the definitions of his 19 new vocabulary words for Chapter 13 on Ancient India. He explored a map of India and put it in his interactive notebook.
Atticus completed his water in the atmosphere quiz. He watched a video called "On the Move" to explore the path of water through the water cycle. He pretended he was a water drop and I directed him through various paths and phase changes through the water cycle. He mapped out this activity in his science notebook.
We compared Salva's seemingly endless walk for safety from political strife to Nya's endless walk for water as a metaphor for life's journey .Given the hardships each faces, we noted the novel's theme of perseverance. Atticus took notes on both the metaphor and the theme as well as on the causes of the conflicts in the novel-political and tribal. We then detailed the hardships each character encounters and noted an example of foreshadowing with respect to Salva's friend who is later eaten by a lion. Atticus timely handed in all of his homework which we reviewed and then supplemented where necessary in order to respond to all study guide questions. Last, Atticus completed a review spelling exercise on the "doubling rule, dropping the silent e rule, and dropping the y rule.
Atticus and I worked on some figure drawing practice. We used the wooden figure drawing models to create movement poses and we went step-by-step to create gesture drawings. Afterwards, we added fun colors and outlines to them.
As the novel's plot operates during two separate time frames, we first discussed the purpose of the dual timeframe narration. Atticus did very well in discerning that the more recent narrative story still reflects the impact of the dearth of water in Sudan thereby reminding the reader that the problem of potable remains. We then noted the importance of tribal and family ties in Salva's world and discussed how the lack of any kind of water is often the cause of disputes between the tribes. We further examined how illness and internal discord are often traced to the absence of potable water in both narratives. I also began to introduce the theme of "walking" as a metaphor as both characters in both narrative timelines are constantly walking ,one for water, one to escape war. Last, we reviewed Atticus' study guide answers and supplemented or corrected answers where necessary and corrected spelling errors.
