Friday September 20, 2019

 

Dear Parents,

 

It is hard to believe that we have been back at Plato for a month already!  Time passes quickly when you’re having fun.  We have made it about a third of the way through Frank McCourt’s novel, Angela’s Ashes.  In addition to our reading of the novel we are also watching the accompanying movie as well as drawing scenes for the purpose of enhancing our reading comprehension and constructing crossword puzzles to bolster our vocabulary.

 

We made our first sojourn over to the Des Plaines library this past week.  I would ask that all of you make sure that you obtain a library card for your child as soon as possible.  For those of you who live in Des Plaines you can simply obtain a card by providing proof of residency.  If you live in Chicago or a suburb, please obtain a card for your child from your local library.  In many instances the Des Plaines library has reciprocity agreements with your municipality that will allow your child to obtain books when we take our weekly trek each Tuesday afternoon.

 

We have also begun diagramming sentences so that we may better understand the various parts of speech. For the time being we will be using sentences from Angela’s Ashes and will eventually construct and diagram our own.  The parts of speech that we will consider will be:

 

• Nouns
• Pronouns
• Verbs
• Adjectives
• Articles (a, an, the)
• Adverbs
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions (and, or, but)

 

We have continued to brush up on our Chicago history in preparation for our visit to Graceland Cemetery on October 18, 2019.  So far, we have covered the following individuals who were either pivotal in the development of Chicago as an international city or a celebrity who made their mark in the Windy City:

 

• Mayor Carter Henry Harrison
• Ernie Banks
• Doug Buffone
• Eli Williams
• Dexter Graves
• John Kinzie
• Robert Fitzsimmons

 

In Mindset Mathematics, we created various types of triangles and then attempted to explain which of the following types of triangle it was using our reasoning skills:

 

• Right
• Isosceles
• Right
• Acute

 

Additionally, we worked on using other systems besides base10.  We also played the 24 Game and played Buzz/Bang.  If you are unfamiliar with Buzz/Bang please ask your children to explain.

 

In Science, we continued our reading of Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon.  We also traced the genesis of the atom by learning about the Big Bang Theory.

 

Social Studies was predominated by the discussion of current events including:

 

• Trump administration’s decision to challenge the State of California’s tough emissions standards for automobiles
• The burning of oil facilities in Saudi Arabia by Yemeni terrorists backed by Iran

 

As always, feel free to contact me with any questions or concerns at:

michael.flynn@platoacademy.org

 

Have a restful weekend.

 

Dr. Michael