Okay, so grammar isn't totally exciting and amazing, but it IS important!
Today, we focused on grammar in terms of sentence structure by creating a tool called a quincunx (pronounced kwin-chunk). Creating the quincunx involves some paper folding, so watch the video below to learn how.
Supplies needed: One piece of 8.5x11 or 11x17 paper, scissors (optional)
Once you have your quincunx created, we first wrote notes about the building blocks of sentences: words, phrases, and clauses.
Words are the smallest units; you can't have a sentence shorter than one word!
Phrases are groups of words that are connected in some way like "a brown dog" or "runs down the street."
Clauses are like phrases but they must have a subject (something doing some kind of action) and a predicate (everything after the subject, including the verb/action). For example "a brown dog runs down the street."
Independent clauses can stand on their own as sentences, like the one above: "A brown dog runs down the street."
Dependent clauses cannot stand on their own as sentences because they do not represent complete thoughts. For instance, if I attached the subordinating conjunction "while" to the clause above:
"While a brown dog runs down the street..."
The first sentence type we took notes over were simple sentences
Notice the sample sentence at the bottom of the notes.
The second sentence type we looked at were compound sentences. Compound sentences can be created by joining two simple sentences (or more) with a comma and a coordinating conjunction (also called FANBOYS).
We took notes over coordinating conjunctions on the inside of our quincunx.
On block day, we will discuss complex sentences, dependent clauses, and subordinating conjunctions as well as fill in examples from both our reading and writing of each sentence type.
Get some sleep tonight and remember, it's always in style to use proper grammar and punctuation!
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