“The dignity of the artist lies in his duty of keeping awake the sense of wonder in the world. In this long vigil he often has to vary his methods of stimulation; but in this long vigil he is also himself striving against a continual tendency to sleep.”  –Marc Chagall

I have enjoyed teaching this group of students this year.  I am looking forward to having them as sixth graders next year.  Happy Summer!

Most students are still in process with the scale drawings from last week’s post.

A geometric and measurement banner is another art project we’ve begun based on our study of Auguste Herbin’s painting “Amour”. (see painting to the right)

Once those are completed, students will enjoy creating a third piece of art using tessellations.  These will be inspired by the symmetry works of M.C. Escher.

Here are some highlights of our planned studies for the month of May:

• We will review all of our composers from the year throughout this month.  We will also review all the music theory concepts we have learned through games and other activities.  This will prepare us for the “music” section of the Academic Decathlon in which the Houses of Galena, Quartz, Azurite, and Amethyst will compete!

• NOTE THE CHANGE OF DATE:  The Spring Choral Concert for Grammar 2, Grammar 3, Grammar 4/5, and Logic/Rhetoric choir will be Tuesday night, May 18 at 6:30 p.m. Participation for students in these classes is mandatory.  In the unusual event that a family emergency prevents a student from being at the concert, parents must clear this absence with the Head of School, Alison Moffatt.  Ball games are not considered acceptable reasons for missing the concert.  CONCERT DRESS IS REQUIRED.
• Each grade level will have a special unit study this month, in many cases to tie in with topics studied in the core classroom.

JK – Peter and the Wolf
K – Peter and the Wolf and “Vivaldi’s Ring of Mystery”
G1 – Peter and the Wolf and American Patriotic Music (including Sousa)
G2 – Verdi’s opera “Aida” set in ancient Egypt
G3 – Gustav’s “The Planets”
G4/5 – Musical stories and tunes from the Revolutionary and Civil Wars of America

If you have questions, please contact me at cstill@liveoakclassical.com.

Week of April 26

Welcome Grammar 5 students!

Bible:

As we continue with the material concerning Christ’s life, we move on to his crucifixion. We’ll have a quiz on Tuesday over last week’s material. Worksheets are due Monday.

Spelling/Grammar:

This week will be a Wordly Wise week, giving us two homework assignments and a quiz on Friday.

In grammar, we’ll continue to review sentence patterns while reviewing degrees of adjectives. We’ll also start learning how to use quotations, again, assisting us in our tall tales while giving us valuable information in the study of grammar.

Reading/ Writing:

In writing we’ll continue our Tall Tale writing unit. In this project, we’ll attempt to mimic those classic tales we saw in the Grammar 4 play. Our attempt is to capture the spirit of the fantastic while explaining how something came to be.

In addition to this writing assignment, which will be completed mostly at school, students should remember that book reports and scrapbooks are due on May 5.

Lastly, we’ll continue our reading and discussion of The Phantom Tollbooth, our novel study for this quarter. ]]> http://liveoakclassical.com/wordpress/2009/08/mr-martinkas-grammar-5a/feed/ 0 http://liveoakclassical.com/wordpress/2009/08/grammar-5-history/ http://liveoakclassical.com/wordpress/2009/08/grammar-5-history/#comments Fri, 21 Aug 2009 21:53:02 +0000 jmartinka http://liveoakclassical.com/wordpress/?p=657 Week of May 3

Having completed our plays on the Meiji restoration, we’ll be presenting to G4 students this week. In addition, our new lesson will be on the Boxer Rebellion. There will be a quiz on Friday.

We are continuing to read “The Mystery of the Periodic Table” this week. We read through chapter 7 so far, and have learned about the strange history of chemistry. Keep in mind, even in their errors, early chemists discovered many things that were needed for us to know what we know today!