Hi MS families! Here's what we accomplished this week!
Faith and Literature
In Faith, we continued reading wisdom literature, including selections from Proverbs, Wisdom of Solomon, Song of Songs, and Ecclesiastes. We discussed the meaning of wisdom, and the purpose of life. We thought about how Song of Songs reflects not only love between a man and woman, but is a reflection of Christ and the Church. We considered what it means when the Preacher in Ecclesiastes describes everything as vanity, and positive responses seem lacking. We also attended Liturgy for St. Photios. In Literature, we read the bulk of *The Magician's Nephew*. We discussed Charn and Jadis, why Digory rang the bell, why the creation of Narnia is depicted as a song, why Uncle Andrew and the Witch can't hear the animals, why the Cabby and his wife are chosen to rule, and other parallels to Genesis.
Composition
For our grammar work, we practiced with possessive nouns. In Writing, we considered conflict in stories, and worked with the story of Alexander the Great and his horse Bucephalus as a model. We also worked on structured 3-point argument paragraphs using our History content.
History and Geography
In History this week, we wrapped up with the Assyrians and came to the height of Babylon. We encountered Nebuchadnezzar, and the Ishtar Gate, and learned about how our base-60 system of timekeeping comes to us from Babylon. We also considered what evidence there is (or isn't) for the existence of the Hanging Gardens.
Logic
This week, we continued our work in fallacies of relevance, and specifically appeals to emotion. We worked through more examples of appealing to fear, and introduced appeals to pity. We also tackled the "bridge and torch problem"--can you solve it? (Four people are crossing a bridge at night, so they all need a torch—but they just have one that only lasts 15 minutes. Alice can cross in one minute, Ben in two minutes, Cindy in five minutes and Don in eight minutes. No more than two people can cross at a time; and when two cross, they have to go at the slower person’s pace. How do they get across in 15 minutes?)
Latin
In Latin, some students worked on reviewing the genitive case and possessives. Others moved into the vocative case and imperative verbs, and a bit of the ablative case for objects of particular prepositions.
Science
For Science this week, Mr. Schwartz (the elder) came in, and we worked with some physics concepts. We reviewed Newton's laws, and students built a Lego car that worked with momentum.
Mathematics
In Math this week, we reviewed fraction multiplication and division. In particular, we saw how to apply our knowledge of the properties and relationships between multiplication, division, and reciprocals to gain a deeper understanding of what we're doing when we perform those operations.
Specials
In PE, students continued to work on the human skeleton in addition to their exercises and games. In Music, students were working on harmonies. Thomas Swehla also came in on Monday to teach students about the Byzantine scale! In Greek, students are working with dates and time. In Art, students are painting winter scenes. Fr. Matthew came in on Wednesday to read a bit of catechism, and a saint's life.
Other Notes
Have a great weekend!
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