Meagan TP#8

On Thursday, August 15, Zhang and I met at the library and the first thing on the agenda was to practice the vocab from the book she chose.  She is an avid fan of the Warriors series which is a long book series dealing with several clans of cats and the adventures they embark on.  Her vocabulary list included: hindquarters, justified, rogue, fragile, imagined, unusual, reviled, proclaim, impressive, and illusion. First, we briefly reviewed each word and Zhang would have to vocally spell the word while looking at it on her sheet, and then write it three times in her notebook. We continued this pattern until she could write each word once without having to refer to her vocab list.  Then, using flash cards, we wrote each word down and then cut the cards in twos or threes depending on the length of the word in order to complete a vocabulary puzzle. After shuffling the cards, I gave Zhang ten minutes to organize each piece of the cards into the ten original words. She got stuck on the longer words, like hindquarters and impressive, but she was able to figure out most of the words within the time limit.  Before we moved on to review grammar, I asked her to make a few example sentences using the practiced vocabulary. Every now and then she would ask for a hint or a reminder of what letter came after what, but she completed four sentences and only missed two letters in the words rogue and proclaim. 

Since our sessions are only thirty minutes each day, we had little time after spelling and finished up the remainder reviewing Zhang's proper nouns worksheet from her school's summer assignments (they have to complete a grammar, spelling, and reading assignment). Her assignment was a scavenger hunt and she had to identify and list people, things, or places in a room or area. She had a good idea of the definition of proper nouns, but lacked specific examples to list so, we walked around the main floor of the library for inspiration.  Zhang found the library attendants, Mrs. Beth and Mrs. Jeane; a MAC and Microsoft computer (I helped her spell Microsoft); and the library and memorial park out front.  At that point, we had run out of time, so we decided to finish the next day and for Zhang to find more words from her book or worksheets.