Friday, February 1st, 2024: Saving Animals

Dear Michael's parents,

Michael put in a lot of work in today's class and as usual was quick to grasp the main ideas, literacy concepts and lexicon. He also did well when we ventured into more nuanced English - using more idiomatic phrases and phrasal verbs. As usual, he was extremely well-mannered, and very actively engaged in his learning of new knowledge.

WHAT WE COVERED IN TODAY'S CLASS:

In today's lesson, we covered the following literacy concepts and strategies from Grade 3, Lesson 25  - U2L7 - Saving Animals:

(1) Key conceptual foundation themes: identification, clues pre-reading and post-reading
(2) Key / New vocabulary: translations, definitions, context, synonyms and antonyms
(3) Genre study: Expositional (Informational) 
(4) Summation of reading passage: brief (one sentence); expanded summary (few sentences)
(5) Sequence analysis: looking at the sequence and order of the passage
(6) Author point of view: How does the author feel about what he is writing?
(7) Making Predictions: pre-reading, while reading, post-reading
(8) Summarising the Main Idea: What is the story about?
(9) Understanding Key Themes and thematic development: the author's message, What do we learn from the passage?
(10) Connections and comparisons: text-to-self and text-to-world connections

EXTENSION WORK:

To supplement the curriculum we also explored new phrases verbal phrases, and collocations, coupled with idiomatic and figurative phrases - which are critical in native dialogue including the following listed below.

- take care of (look after); taking care of
- keeps me busy; keeping busy
- short for time (limited for time, not much time left)
- use of "-like" suffix: superhero-like, brother-like, sloth-like (slow-moving)

HOMEWORK:

For homework if Michael has time, could he please complete the following:

1.   Lesson 25  - U2L7 - Phonics & Spelling Practice

2. Before our next class, pre-read the two reading passages in Lesson 26 - Protecting the Island (On-Level Reader) which will be for our next class.

For your information, our additional class notes in Michael's Journal, which will be updated every week, will be put into the same shared drive where his evaluated homework is.

Have a wonderful night and I look forward to seeing Michael next week. Warm wishes, and all the best for Michael and the entire family for the weekend and week ahead.

Warm regards,
Teacher Philip