Monday and Tuesday

Word Parts--I'm giving a test (or two) a day over our old word part lists. As I graded the last word part test, I noticed that the students just aren't putting any time into the word parts at all. So we started with list one yesterday, and the students took a quiz over the 25 word parts from that list. They had five minutes. If they missed a word part, they had to write it ten times each with the definition. Today we did lists two and three. If they missed any, they had to write them five times each and draw a word part picture. A lot of the students have to finish that up for homework tonight.

Also, I'm collecting their spring break reading logs tomorrow. Their book report (or other project) is due next Tuesday (technically...I may change that).

New word parts! List 12! It's a lot of science word parts this time. Here's what we've gone over so far:

an means "without" like anarchy (without a government) and anonymous (without a name)
ab means "away" like abstain (keep away from), abolish (do away with), ablution (a religious washing away), and abbreviate (letters go away)
mel (according to the book) means "song" like melody and melodrama (originally a play with songs in it). According to my resources, mel comes from the Greek melos which had to do with arms and legs. I found about 70 words that had to do with arms and legs and about 7 that had to do with songs. Maybe I should write a book of my own!
alb means "white" like albino, albumen (white part of an egg), and albedo (having to do with reflected light like off the moon)
enter means "intestine" like dysentery (intestinal inflammation causing diarrhea) and enterozoan (intestinal worms)...pleasant stuff.
aden means "gland" like your adenoids and adenectomy (the cutting out of a gland)
aer means "air" like with aerobatics, aerobic, and aerodynamics. And malaria which is actually a mosquito-borne disease that people originally thought was from "bad air"
hum is "earth" like human (in the Biblical Adam and Eve story, Adam was made from earth), humble (down to earth), exhume (dig out of the earth), and posthumous (after a person's time on earth)
struct is "build" like construct, destruct (build down?), instruct, obstruct, structure, and infrastructure
cyan is "blue" like the color cyan (I'm a guy, so I don't even know this color), cyanide, and cyanosis where babies fingers, toes, and lips turn blue because of a lack of oxygen

We'll be returning to our regularly-scheduled research stuff tomorrow. I'm disappointed at the lack of effort a lot of students showed with the research before break. We had five days of research, and a lot of students turned in three or four note cards. It's unacceptable, and those students who didn't use their time wisely are way behind with the project and, according to my gradebook, failing the project so far.

Oh, we also made a trip to the library today. Mrs. East seemed excited to see us and talked like a person who had had coffee injected directly into her veins.