Category Archives: Book Reports & Narration

Teaching the Classics Notes to Self

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Starting this summer I plan to be more consistent about our Friday literature days. I bought Teaching the Classics last year that I really like and I’m reading it again and taking notes. Here’s my old post on it and it ties in very well with the Thomas Jefferson Education approach to literature. But the TJ program starts with the kids being around 12 years and this program (Teaching the Classics) has you begin with children as early as pre-K using picture/storybooks.

(I wrote this when I was falling asleep and it shows! Going back to edit now… 🙂 )

Lesson One: Literary Analysis – Getting Started
For this stage it’s best to use picture/storybooks regardless of the child’s age – it helps provide a condensed storychart & simple themes.

1. What is the context of the story & who is the author of the piece?
2. Five Elements of Fiction – conflict, plot, setting, characters, theme (all explored more below.)
3. Style of piece?
4. Socratic Method: involve student w/questions, can work w/any worldview, teaches how to think (observe, deduce, evaluate.)

Lesson Two: Plot & Conflict
Types of conflicts – main character against mankind, nature, animal, God or Fate, onself, or society?

What’s the relationship between the plot & conflict? The conflict drives plot/story.

Lesson Three: Setting
Things to explore – time, place, context, environment

Lesson Four: Characters
Things to explore – behavior, appearance, conversation & thoughts, descriptions/thoughts from other characters about them, interactions w/environment, juxtaposition (how character is similar to/different from surrounding characters.)

Lesson Five: Theme
Theme is the underlying idea or philosophy, NOT necessary the subject of the story or the moral. The theme asks question, the moral gives opinion/answer.

How proceed after covering above lessons?
1. Create a reading list* for you/children to choose from.
2. Read book – ALL read it (not just to start but in general, you must read it yourself to be able to discuss it.) Read together or alone. If old enough have child fill out own story chart and take notes. Teacher must also ask & answer the socratic questions and include examples to support your view (so take your own notes! But you won’t necessarily be sharing these with the kids.)
3. Discussions – ask socratic questions to students. Let THEM answer the questions and don’t just share your view – this is not a lecture. During process have younger student fill out story chart (oral or written) and have older student discuss their story chart they filled out after reading on own. Discuss literary terms.
4. Written work – depends on age of child. Here are discussion & written ideas by stage:
grammar (elementary age) – narrate story; simple book reports as developmentally appropriate working up to description of author’s use of literary devises.
logical (late elementary/junior high)– explore relationships between story elements; key thought outline summaries, written response to socratic questions, define literary terms, etc.
rhetoric (high school+ ) – worldview of author, identify & discuss major themes & handling; several page reports on theme, literary devises, compare & contrast, etc.

So the steps are:
(1) Read good books.*
(2) Discuss good books (including story chart.)
(3) Write about good books.

* Our reading list is one compiled from a variety of books and online resources. I have NOT read many of those books and cannot vouch for the content so read at your own discretion.

My plan is that once a year we’ll take a month (probably January or summertime) and go through the five introductory lessons. That way we can review the concepts with the older kids and introduce the concepts to the younger kids. Then throughout the rest of the year we’ll do Friday literature days using the three steps – read, discuss, write.

Reading Comprehension

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When I read the kids a story or a chapter from a longer book we ask them to narrate what happened. It does not have to be super detailed, we just want to know they didn’t sleep through the reading. 🙂 It also helps them to learn to summarize key plot points, identify characters and setting, etc. If they aren’t sure how to summarize I may ask them questions that are open ended like, “Who were the main characters?” or, “Did something exciting happen?”

I just read Bennett the first chapter of the first Magic Tree House book and I would pause each page to ask a question like, “How old is Jack?” or “What kind of tree was the tree house in?” or “Who wears glasses?” Then at the end of the chapter I asked him to tell me about it and he did! He narrated the first chapter and remember the details, though he’s a little smart alec and threw in stuff like Annie’s 17 (instead of 7) and says he’s the one wearing glasses. He gives those answers with a big grin, waiting for me to laugh. And he insists they are in Pennsylivirginia, despite reading for himself that it’s PennsylVANIA. He’s a cute little stinker. 🙂

But I am thrilled to realize how much he is comprehending and he’s excited about having me read this to him (though as I read I realized he can read this level book himself with a little bit of help.) For now I want to focus on comprehension so I’ll read it to him.

Did I mention he’s silent reading? We’ve noticed that lately he’s reading to himself. Hmm…

Okay, I just sat down to have Bennett read me the next chapter (he needed help with the word “crawled” but not with the word “everywhere” which is funny – if he doesn’t recognize a word he’ll tell me, “I don’t know that word,” or, “I need help.”) I was pointing to each word and asking him to say it and he did but awkwardly, then he took MY finger and started to move it as he read and he was reading WAY faster! Like a normal reading speed and me pointing to words and asking him to read it was slowing him down. It gave me goosebumps when he grabbed my finger and started to move it and read so quickly. It was eery.

And there seems to be no rhyme or reason to which words he flies over without a pause and which words make him stumble. He can read most of the state names so I assume he’s memorized those but something like “crawl” makes him stop? And he seems to know all the colors and the numbers when spelled out. So odd. But cool!

Season of the Sandstorms (MTH)

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Cam

Well it starts out like any other magic tree house book. Jack and Annie have to help the caliph (king of Baghdad) spread wisdom to the world with the help of 8 magic rhymes. I think other kids my age would like them too. There’s a lot I’m not telling you, I can’t tell you the whole story.

(Heidi adds – I wrote the title and then told C to write his book report. He asked me for some proofreading but he wrote and typed this entire thing by himself!! Except this part, and I did add the picture for him. 🙂 )

Here is Christopher with his rendition of the book Ten Magic Rhymes for Jack & Annie:
Cam-1

Chocolate Factory – Unit Study Ideas

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This evening I started sorting through some of those boxes of books Kit lugged down from the attic. I hadn’t realized how much we accumulated (and Kit went to buy me a new shelf, hooray!) But I had an entire file folder for a unit study on Charlie and the Chocolate Factory plus a book that had study guides and activities for three of Roald Dahl’s books, including Charlie.

So I’m thinking we need a unit study on chocolate! There were all sorts of fun ideas. Kit and I had a wedding reception here in town and ordered a wedding cake from Candy Haven. They do delicious wedding cakes (we did taste sampling, of course) and also incredible chocolates and more recently have bakery items for breakfast. We stopped there the morning of Joseph’s ultrasounds for some deliciousness.

And old post with links for chocolate study.

Anyway, Kit’s going to give them a call tomorrow to ask if they would do a two child tour and let Christopher and Moira go see a chocolate factory. I want to go, of course, but I’ll stay home with the little ones because as I told Kit – I think we need a yearly chocolate unit study. 🙂 Literature, writing, science of chocolate, history of chocolate, health benefits of chocolate, math in making recipes with chocolate. I can tie all sorts of things into this! I’ll take them next year for the tour. 😉

Update – Unit Study Ideas:
– write a business letter to a chocolate company
– tour a chocolate factory
– read bio of Roald Dahl
– vocabulary
– write a fantasy story: setting, characters (3), plot (2 problems, resolution),
– learn how chocolate if made (find videos online, or library book)
– response journal (narration and/or dictation)
– discuss what happened to each golden ticket winner: main personality trait, what occurred in factory, changes after? How similar and how different? Who is your favorite?
– design a golden ticket
– practice interview: in pairs, someone play reporter and someone play person who found golden ticket.
– complete your family tree (like Charlie’s grandparents)
– tough choices: pretend you are Charlie’s friend and advise him about the following situations – Grandpa Joe giving him dime to buy chocolate and saying to keep it secret; finding dollar, should he spend it on chocolate or give it to his parents; should he sell the ticket to the woman for $500 or go to the factory?
– draw the chocolate room
– junk food graph: record everyone’s favorite junk foods or record what junk food vs. what healthy food ate over week.
– make chocolates: chocolate pudding in graham cracker crust; hot chocolate; spidery treats (8 ozs chocolate, 2 c rice krisipies, 1/2 c coconut), no bake chocolate cookies.
– chocolate taste testing: remove labels and graph who likes which best.
– poetry: pretend you won a ticket and something happened to you in the factory. Describe it then write what Oompa Loompa song they would sing about you.
– Do you have any questions about what happens after the book? (See list in file folder of possible questions.)
– make diorama
– act out a scene
– write a letter to a character
– play twenty questions to guess character
– draw book cover, including inside flap description
– interview a character after the factory tour.
– pick 3 things to further research: chocolate, nutrition, candy, Roald Dahl, television, squirrels, inventions, fantasy stories, behavior, factories, etc.
– create a candy invention of your own: brainstorm using cluster (looks like a spider, an idea per leg) then pick an idea and develop it. Would this appeal to kids? What ingredients would you use? How would you market it, design label? Why did you pick this idea?
– draw a picture of the machine needed to make your invented candy.
– explain context of quotes (see list in file folder)
– hold pretend conversation for situations suggested (see list in file folder)
– writing prompts (see file folder)

BOOK REPORT ON THE WITCHES BY ROALD DAHL (take II)

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photo-167

(Christopher’s book report got deleted by some siblings SO we’re recreating it.)

A boy kid and his grandmother turned all of the witches in england into mice. Then they turned the rest of the worlds’ witches into mice. It can seem scary at first but later it becomes exciting!

(Mom is now typing up for him, since he’s talking faster than he can write.)

They used formula 86 delayed action mouse maker to turn them into mice. (“Should we tell them the recipe? I forgot the names of some.”) You need to boil a telescope until it’s nice and soft, and you have to boil ants or crocodile tongues, and a claw of a crab clomper and a grandol’s egg and that’s all I remember now.

One of them lives in a burrow, one of them lives in the ocean, the crab clomper lives on the high cliffs and a grandol is a type of bird that lives in a nest in a tree that’s very high. And they build their nests at the very top. That’s all I remember of the recipe. I don’t want to give away the whole book. I was giving away some of the book and I don’t want to give away all the fun. And I want to give the kids a message:

Every single witch HATES children, and does away with them. Like they turn them into porpoises, rats, stone statues, chickens, um… makes them go into oil paintings. And they use snakes to do away with children. And if you are lucky enough, you can get away but you can lose a thumb.

The story of the world book report

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For his language lesson today Christopher decided to write a book report on his history text, The Story of the World 2:

     The story is about how people lived in the past.  We studied Rome, a very powerful city.  We studied China, it is very rich.  We studied islam.  It has five pillars: first is faith, second is pray, third is give, fourth is fast, fifth is go to mecca.

Moira’s Caterpillar

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Moira recites her Caterpillar poem from First Language Lessons. You have to wait for the bit with the wings.