Week of March 4

Have you ever wondered how maple syrup is made? The first step is to "tap" a maple tree, and this is done in the north when the weather begins to warm up. 

You can visit the Cleveland Metroparks to take a tour and see how maple syrup is made. The tours are every weekend during March. Practice your listening skills by watching the videos to learn more about "tapping" a maple tree and making maple sugar. 

Maple Sugar History Tours in Cleveland Metroparks

Here Comes the Sun - song by the Beatles

Yes, it has been a long, cold winter. Listen to the song and complete the quiz below it afterwards.

Quiz (scroll down once you click the link)

Articles - a, an, the

Our next grammar topic and review will be on articles. Articles are 3 small words that drive people crazy. In order to understand articles, you have to be confident in your knowledge of singular and plural nouns.

Below is a video that explains basic rules surrounding the use of a, an, and the. (British English)

Pronunciation - Tricky Vowels

/I/ and /i/

/E/ and /i/

Maple Sugaring

On March 3 our class braved cold (but sunny!) temperatures to learn how maple sugar is tapped from special trees. We learned that this is only done in a very small part of the USA and Canada where the climate is perfect. Lucky for us, Ohio is part of this small region. We also learned that it takes approximately 40 gallons of sap to produce 1 gallon of maple syrup. We got to warm up at the end of our tour as we watched park volunteers boil water out of the sap that had been collected.