Fourth Grade, Reading, Set Three

Little House Series

• We read On the Banks of Plum Creek.
• Questions and Discussion

Mystery-fold

• This one turned out to be a tiger.

Tall Tales

• John Henry
• I found a map that showed the railroads that were built in 1870 and those that were added between 1870 an 1890. We talked about where the most r/r were added, located the transcontinental r/r, states with fewest and most r/r, how to get from here to there.

Fourth Grade, Reading, Set Two

Little House Series

• We read Little House on the Prairie.
• We started a map of the Ingalls' family travels.
• Discussion and questions.

Mystery-Fold

• We did one that tells the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff and the picture is a troll.

Tall Tales

• Johnny Appleseed
• We looked at a map of where apples grow, noticing continents, countries, weather zones, and states in the United States.

Fourth Grade, Reading, Set One

Little House Series

• We read Little House in the Big Woods, doing some activities from Little House in the Classroom after most chapters. When we completed the book we went through the discussion questions and completed the Then and Now section in Little House in your Classroom.
• The Then and Now activity was to write down what the Ingalls family ate and where they got the food and then to write down what we eat and where we get the food.

Mystery-Fold

• I showed K. the Birthday Party story
• The following day she performed it for me
• The next day she did it for some friends

Tall Tales

• I read Five Fathoms Tall / Stormalong from American Tall Tales by Adrien Stoutenburg
• K. read the short story about Stormalong in Teaching Tall Tales
• Geography
• We figured a route for Stormalong to sail from Maine to Italy to India to Australia to China to Russia and back to Maine
• Introduced "water words" by giving clues and definitions for K. to find the place on a map
• Art
• K. scratched a picture in a bar of soap and then colored it in with paint

Third Grade, Reading, Set Seven

We read pages 119 - 152 in Long Ago Stories of California.

We read the book, Clipper Ship, by Thomas P. Lewis and worked through a study guide. The book gave good information, but (although K. didn't complain) I thought the book was poorly written and boring.

Third Grade, Reading, Set Six

We read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. We had one book, but I thought it would be nice if we each had our own to read from, so I picked one up from the library. It had larger type and some of the original pictures in it, and K. enjoyed using it. I had a study guide for the book, put out by World for Learning. I picked a few things from it for us to do:

• Vocabulary
• Comprehension
• Recipes - Poppyseed Muffins and a Rainbow Cookie (below)
• Cinquain Poem
• Venn Diagram comparing the book and the movie
• L. Frank Baum: Author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by Carol Greene -- this is a Rookie Biography and was very interesting and added to our reading the book.

We have decided to use The Wonderful Wizard of Oz for our Book Day on October 31. We already had a Scarecrow and have made a Tin Man. I'm not sure if we will try to make a Lion or not. I'm working on a Dorothy costume for K. We are going to cut flowers out of tissue paper to make our dining room into poppy fields. We are still working on our menu. Book Days are lots of fun!

Third Grade, Reading, Set Five

We continued with More Tell and Draw Stories. Each of us did a couple each week.

We read pages 91 - 118 in Long-Ago Stories of California, then completed a story organizer about it.

We read Out of Darkness: The Story of Louis Braille by Russell Freedman together.

Third Grade, Reading, Set Four

I got the book, More Tell and Draw Stories, from the library. Each week we practiced a couple. At our support group's promotion program, K. presented one of the stories from Tell and Draw Stories.

We read The Mystery of Morgan Castle and started reading Long-Ago Stories of California.

Third Grade, Reading, Set Three

We are continuing to practice the story from Read for the Fun of It. One day each week we each take a turn telling the story.

We read The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth. I had hoped to find a lapbook or something similar to accompany it, but I didn't. Therefore, I picked something from each chapter that we could learn more about. I'm making that its own post.

Activities for The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth

The Enormous Egg is a fun book to read, and is a favorite at our house. I decided to use it in third grade and since I couldn't find a lapbook or other types of activities to go with the book I made up my own.

Chapter 1

• We looked in the atlas and found Freedom, New Hampshire.
• I printed out a map of New England and K. marked Freedom on it.
• We found a picture of a New Hampshire Red rooster and printed it.

Chapter 2

• Added Laconia and Boston to our map
• Started writing out the plot of the story. This was a sheet I printed out from the Young Novelist Workbook. It has a drawing of a roller coaster with nine blocks of space to write the plot -- beginning, as the action build, the climax, the falling action, and the conclusion.

Chapter 3

• Printed out a labeled diagram of a rowboat so we could find out what the gunwale and oarlocks were.

Chapter 4

• Added to the plot work sheet.

Chapter 5

• Found definitions of archaeology and paleontology and completed a Venn diagram about them.

Chapter 6

• Learned more about what animals have gizzards.
• Printed out a picture of a skeleton of a triceratops.
• K. wrote some sentences on the paper about gizzards.
• Made a chart comparing K.'s size and my size. We used ribbon to measure our nose, hand, ear, foot, etc. and taped them on a poster to see how big K. is and how much she has to grow.

Chapter 7

• Added to plot work sheet.
• Added Washington D.C. / National Museum to map

Chapter 8

• Vocabulary word: dubious
• Gladiolus; we printed out a picture and found out that some words' plural form ends in 'i' because they are Latin words.

Chapter 9

• Added to plot work sheet

Chapter 10

• Added to plot work sheet

Chapter 11

• Found a diagram of a window with sash weights.
• Set up an experiment with two buckets - one representing the window and the other the sash weight. I tied them together with string and hung it over the back of a chair. K. discovered that if the weight was heavier than the window, the window wouldn't stay closed, and if the window was heavier than the weight, the window wouldn't stay open.
• Added to plot work sheet

Chapter 12

• We traced their trip from Freedom to Washington D.C. in the atlas.

Chapter 13

• Used a map of Washington D.C. to follow the story.

Chapter 14

• Added to plot work sheet
• Found the National Zoological Park on the map.

Chapter 15

• Found fallacies in Senator Granderson's speech.
• Added to plot work sheet

Chapter 16

• Added to plot work sheet

Chapter 17

• Finished plot work sheet

There are lots of other things you could do, such as find out how a bill becomes a law or how a senator is elected, depending on what you are interested in.

Third Grade, Reading, Set Two

We read the book, The Search for Delicious by Natalie Babbitt. There were a some activities in Games with Books that went along with the story.

I picked a short story from Read for the Fun of It and made some of the props for it. We worked on learning to tell the story and completing the props.

Third Grade, Reading, Set One

• K. read Treasure Under the Sea (published in 1959) aloud to me and answered the comprehension questions.
• We had a lot of fun with the book, Tell and Draw Stories by Margaret J. Olsen. We completed the book, but may work on memorizing some of the stories in Set Two.

Second Grade, Reading, Set Seven

We are using Meet Thomas Jefferson by Marvin Barrett for our reading book. It has eighteen very short chapters and is in the Step-Up Books series.

Comprehension Skills
This set focuses on oral reading. K. has always hated putting expression in what she reads, but I picked up a dvd of the StoryWatchers Club, which has four or five storytellers telling stories to a group of children. She enjoyed it, and wants to learn to tell stories (which is something I had already planned for third grade). Anyway, now she is reading with more expression, and even when we recite our Bible verses she is using expression.

To practice oral skills, we are focusing on diction and obeying the punctuation. Since Thanksgiving is near, I pulled out a book of Thanksgiving poems that we are reading aloud to each other.

From Games for Reading:

• See it - Name it -- we played this on our nature walk
• Zip Cards (pg 72) -- in our last set of weeks, one skill we were working on was reading in phrases. This game reinforces that. There are a list of two or three word phrases to copy on to 3 x 5 cards. First, you go through them to make sure your child knows all the words. Next, you flip through the cards quickly seeing how fast they can read them. I also put the phrases of a couple Thanksgiving poems on accordion folded paper to flip through.
• Picture Labels -- we actually did a variation of this game, combining it with Race of Words from Games for Writing. I had a picture from an old calendar and we each wrote a list of all the things we could find in the picture.

Second Grade, Reading, Set Six

We switched to the reader, Pilgrim Boy. It is a third grade A Beka reading book that I picked up at the thrift store. I decided to use it now since it goes with the time period we are studying in history. It has comprehension questions after each chapter. There are 16 short chapters.

We finished Pilgrim Boy and started reading BJU's 3-1 reading book again.

Comprehension Skills
This section is learning to read at different speeds. You read rapidly when skimming to find an answer or searching for a name in the phone book (yeah, who does that anymore!). You read carefully when studying, following directions, etc. A normal rate is used when reading for enjoyment.

• Obey the Speed Limit; this was a board game in the book, players took a card, read it and followed the directions. Cards said things like:
• Whoops! That is too fast to read directions for putting a model together. Move back 2 spaces.
• The directions to the game you want to play are complicated. Move ahead 1 space very slowly.
• Good for you! You found the key word in the paragraph. Move ahead 3 spaces.
• This joke is pretty good. Move ahead 2 spaces and read at a normal rate to enjoy it.
• Where are the Phrases?; one way to read rapidly is to read in phrases rather than word by word. We looked at a poem and broke it into phrases.
• I had K. read a science experiment rapidly. Then asked her what we were supposed to do. Then I had her read it slowly and asked her again.
• We searched for friends names in the telephone book.
• I read a story to her and we found the five most important words in some of the paragraphs.

From Games for Reading:

• See It - Name It page 138 -- we did this on the way to the park one day
• Goofy Sentences page 64
• Interview with an Alligator page 171
• Go Togethers page 140

Second Grade, Reading, Set Five

We are reading the Bob Jones 3-1 reading book now. I found a spinner to use for asking questions about a story. The spinner is divided into eight parts. In each part there is a question. After each story, K. answers four of the questions.

1. Who are the main characters?
2. What is the main idea of the story?
3. What are the problems or conflicts in the story?
4. What is the solution to the story?
5. What would you do if you were one of the main characters?
6. What is an important detail in the story?
7. Where does the story take place?
8. How did the story end?

Comprehension Skills
The comprehension skill in this unit is building vocabulary. I didn't think any of the activities in the book were applicable to us, so we are looking for new words every day, finding out the definitions, and making a list of the words.

From Games for Reading:

• Puzzles -- K. and I started a 250 piece puzzle. We have the frame done. (5th week) We have finished the puzzle. I had to hide it under a couch to keep my husband from finishing it!
• Recipe -- K. made corn muffins for dinner one night from a box of Jiffy mix. This really is a good reading exercise. She had to read the instructions, understand them, and follow them in order.
• Tell a Tall Tale of Your Day
• Problems and Solutions

Second Grade, Reading, Set Four

This week we finish Story Train. We started the book, Animals do the Strangest Things. It is not stories, but it is interesting. We read the entire book during this set of weeks.

Comprehension Skills: Critical Reading, Reading Corner:

• I read K. a tall tale and an article from Nature Friend magazine. We talked about which was true and how she knew.
• We talked about two types of propaganda: bandwagon and appeal (someone famous). We looked for examples in commercials and billboards.
• We talked about the difference between fact and opinion. I had printed out a paper with sentences, some of which were fact and others were opinion. K. had to decided if each sentence was fact or opinion. Another day, I wrote down six topics (music, flowers, games, etc.). I let her pick three and I took the other three. We each said two sentences about our topics. One sentence to be fact and the other to be opinion.
• I Wanna Iguana by Karen Kaufman Orloff -- we read this book. It provides good discussion for what is fact and what is opinion.
• I taught K. that words have connotations as well as denotations. I had a print out with words on it and she was to draw a smiling face if she had good feelings toward the word, as frowning face if she had yuck feeling, and a straight face if she had no real feelings one way or the other. You can find some words used in I Wanna Iguana for their connotations.
• We looked at advertisements in magazines to find words that have good or bad connotations, and discussed why they used those words.
• We looked at advertisements in magazines to see if they used testimonials, slogans, bandwagon, or appeals to status.

From Games for Reading:

• Problems and Solutions page 167 -- you present a problem (such as being stranded on an island with no people and no food, but you know a ship will pass that way in the next few days) to your child and ask them what they would do. It is usually necessary to ask them more questions about their initial solution to get them to really think things through.
• Taking Turns page 148 -- One person gives the beginning of a sentence (The monkey climbed the tree) and the other person finishes it (because a snake was on the ground.) The sentence must make sense. As you get better, the first person can give the end of the sentence and the second person give the beginning of the sentence.
• Interview with an Alligator page 170 -- in this game one person decides to be an object or pretend character. The other person interviews them. Questions can be about where they live, what they like to do, etc. Then switch roles.

Second Grade, Reading, Set Three

We are continuing to read Story Train Monday through Thursday, about four pages each day. One day K. complained, "I have to read all that!" But when she got to the stopping point she didn't want to stop. She said, "But, I want to find out what happens."

 

Comprehension Skills: Drawing Conclusions, Reading Corner:

• I used the questions on pages 72 and 73 to diagnose her skill level. We do need to work on this skill.
• I read a variety of fables to K. and let her guess the moral or conclusion. (pg 73, Skill #1)
• Cause Clauses -- There were about six sentences, cut in two pieces for K. to match up. For instance: The clouds were so dark | because it was raining. (pg 73, Learning #1)
• I picked a story K. had not read before and read most of it to her, then stopped and asked her what she thought would happen. (pg 73, Skill #2)
• I picked up the book Yummy Riddles by Marilyn Helmer from the library. At the top of each page is the question. Then there is an illustration of the riddle and the answer at the bottom of the page. The illustration gave K. and idea of the answer, but still made her think. I kept a sheet of paper across the bottom of the book to hide the answers. This book was a lot of fun to read. We laughed a lot. (pg 73, Learning #2)
• "What doesn't belong?" -- we took turns writing down four things, then letting the other person cross out the item that didn't belong. Example: bike, car, dress, truck. (pg 73, Skill #3)
• Analogies -- there is a list in the book that we used. K. caught on really quickly. I'm not sure we had done this before. (pg 73, Learning #3)
• I read a story to K. about a boy that wanted to go hunting with his father, but was too young. Then he wanted to go to town with his mother, but had to stay home and watch his sisters. One of his sisters got hurt and he knew how to help her and when his mother got home she was so glad that he had done such a good job taking care of his sisters. I stopped four times while reading the story to ask K. how the boy was feeling then. (pg 73, Skill #4)
• What would happen if? -- talk about what would happen if it never rained, or if we didn't have shoes, or if no one had names, or .... (pg 73, Learning #4)
• Don't Forget Me -- one person lists three things that go together (hand, foot, leg) and the other player says a fourth thing that goes with them (arm). This is a good game for in the car. (pg 74, Learning #5)
• How Do You Know? -- this involves reading a very short story and asking questions where your child has to see the relationships and draw conclusions. (pg 74, Learning #6)
• Why Words -- I had picked out a story in Finding New Neighbors and underlined some sentences or parts of sentences. As I read the story to K., I asked her why or how -- what in the story supported the statement? (pg 74, Learning #7)

From Games for Reading:

• Two Drawing Games page 42 -- I drew a picture and let K. study it as long as she wanted. Then she turned around and I added three things to it. She was to tell me what I added. then it was her turn to draw and mine to guess. Instead of just drawing designs (like we did when we played this before) we drew pictures. I think it made the drawing part easier and the finding more fun.
• Hard Listening page 83
• Picture Memory page 37 -- I had chosen two pictures from old calendars. We looked at one for two minutes, then I hid it from K. and asked her questions about it. After that we looked at the second picture for two minutes and then K. asked me questions about it.
• Find It page 35 -- we looked for vertical/horizontal, parallel/intersecting lines
   

Second Grade, Reading, Set Two

We are back to reading Story Train. We are having fun with the Playmaking is Fun section, acting out stories. We spent a couple days in the fourth week making a story into a play and acting it out. One week K. had a sore throat, so instead of her reading aloud, we detoured and did a short unit on poetry. I read poems to her and then she would tell me if it was written to (1) express thoughts, feelings, or emotions; (2) tell a story; (3) describe something or someone; or (4) teach a lesson.

Comprehension Skills: Sequence of Events, The Reading Corner:

• We read a story and I asked some of the questions provided on page 71.
• I read Because a Little Bug Went Ka-choo! by Rosetta Stone. We talked about the order of the events and how the story wouldn't make sense if they were out of order. (#1 on page 71)
• I started a story with "Once there was a boy who got lost" we told and short story and I wrote it down. Then I cut the sentences apart and had K. put it in order. (#2 on page 71)
• I read The Old Woman and Her Pig adapted by Eric A. Kimmel and we talked about how one event leads to the next.
• We did the magic tricks provided in the book and I have checked a couple simple magic books out of the library. K. is enjoying learning the tricks. Incredible Tricks and the Dinner Table and Amazing Tricks with Everyday Stuff  both are by Steve Charney
• I read a mystery story to K. Then we wrote the main events on a paper and I cut the strips apart. K. had to put them back in the correct order. Then I mixed up some of the strips and we talked about if it would work that way in the story. K. really enjoyed mixing up the strips. She made some pretty funny combinations.
• We were supposed to make a timeline. I had planned to do it on the development of water navigation -- to go with our history studies -- but when I was looking on-line to find pictures of the various things I found a timeline that someone else made, so we just looked at and discussed it. In history we are doing a timeline of the explorers.

From Games for Reading:

• Chain Game  page 130
• Jigsaw Puzzles -- while cleaning out my parents garage, we found some puzzles that have 63 large pieces. These are perfect for K. They offer a challenge, but can be finished in a short amount of time.
• Hard Listening page 83
• Alphabet Words page 100 -- K. wanted to do animals. We are both coming up with an animal for each letter. We completed through M and will finish it during our "off schedule" week.

Second Grade, Reading, Set One

We are reading Meet the Men who Sailed the Seas by John Dyment. This is a Step-Up Book. I hadn't planned to use this book for Reading, but the book Meet Christopher Columbus hasn't reached our library yet. Meet the Men starts with "The First Sailors" and so the first seven chapters review things we learned in History in kindergarten and first grade. Then it goes on to Columbus, Magellan, Drake, The Mayflower, Cook, and John Paul Jones -- people and events we will study this year (9 chapters). Each chapter only has three full or five partial pages of text, so one chapter a day works really well. The illustrations are good, but are not full color. The information is presented in an interesting way at K.'s level, with a few of challenging words in each chapter.

 

To review the Comprehension Skills we worked on last year:

• I've been reading a new short story to K. then asking her some or all of these questions:
• Can you summarize the story with one word?
• What would be a good title for this story?
• What kind of story was this?
• Have you read any other stories that were similar to this one? How were they alike?
• What is the most important sentence in this paragraph?
• One day I showed K. several pictures (one at a time) and had her tell me one word that gave the main idea of the picture.
• I read paragraphs to her and had K. give me the main idea.
• I also found some games on-line that we enjoyed playing: The Hamburger Game and Jeopardy Main Idea Review Game.
• Now K. is working on drawing pictures that tell a story (I had three options and let her pick one). Once it is done I'll put pictures up. The pictures are on a roll of paper and will be attached to dowel rods that will be turned to show one picture at a time through a hole cut in a box. She calls it a TV.
• Category Tic-Tac-Toe: In each space there are three words that belong in the same category (slide, swing, monkey bars). Before putting your "X" or "O" down, each player has to tell the category and add one more item (teeter-totter).
• Read a short story to your child. Then trace around their hand on a piece of paper. Have them write the main idea on the palm and five details on the fingers/thumb.
• Read a short story, or a chapter of a longer story, to your child then take turns making up a telegram about the story.
• Here are a couple more on-line games for practice identifying the main idea and details: What's the Big Idea? and Identify the Main Idea
• We wrote three or four word sentences, then exchanged papers and added more details. The first day we tried to make each into a ten word sentence. The next day we tried to add four or so words that began with the same letter. K. kept just adding words to the end of the sentence, so I started putting blanks in the sentence so she would add description/details. Example: The ___ ___ cow mooed ___ ___. Might become: The big brown cow mooed behind the barn.
• I read a story to K., then asked her if ___ was different would it change the story? The blank could be the color of some one's clothes or where the story took place, etc. Any detail in the story.
• K. finished drawing the pictures for her TV (see above) and told the story to her aunt.

From Games for Reading we did:

• Two Drawing Games, page 42 -- I started with the easy game. I drew a simple design and then K. copied it. That was too easy, so after one round we went on to the next game. I drew a simple picture/design and let K. study it until she thought she knew it. Then I had her turn around and I added ONE thing to the picture. She had to find the change. This game helps children be able to distinguish "pot" from "pet".
• Jigsaw Puzzles, page 30 -- jigsaws are useful for visual perception
• Mazes, page 26 -- mazes are a great eye exercise and are also good for penmanship

First Grade, Reading, Set Seven

We are finishing off the BJU reading book. Now we are reading Story Train, published by The L.W. Singer Company, Inc. in 1960.

From Reading Corner we are learning about Details:

• We talked about Who, What, Why, When, and How in a variety of stories this week.
• I read K. a story, leaving out details to show that details are important.
• Details are important in recipes, games, etc.
• We each made a lantern, following the instructions given.
• We talked about some details being more important than others.
• If this story took place in the city instead of the forest would it be the same?
• If it was a mouse instead of a beaver would it change the story?
• If the girl had a blue dress instead of a red dress would it matter?
• We wrote a telegram for a story we read. Telegrams must be short, so you have to eliminate everything except the main idea.
• Another day we decided on the main idea and the important details of a story. Then we made a mobile, writing these things on card stock cutouts of the animals in the story.
• I copied a descriptive paragraph; each day we took a few sentences and crossed out everything that was descriptive.
• I read The Peterkins' Thanksgiving and then we wrote the Who, What, Why, When, and How inside large W's and an H.
• We each took a basic sentence and added description to it. The sentence "The boy ran." could turn into "The tall, freckled boy in blue pants and red shirt ran around the block, over the bridge, and under the tree to meet his father." We made it a contest to see who could add the most words. We did this a few days, and on the last day K. beat me.
• Details are important in word problems. I had about six problems. Some had extra information, some didn't have enough information, and some had just what was needed to solve the problem.

From Games for Reading:

• Matches and Opposites, pg 144
• Dictionary Reading, pg 146 -- K. loves to look through our BJU Student Dictionary. It always takes us a while to look up words in the dictionary because K. wants to keep stopping to find out about the things that are pictured.
• See It - Name It, pg 138 -- K. picked the bathroom and we set out goal at fifty words.
• Go-Togethers, pg 140 -- we played this game twice and used "Thanksgiving" and "Winter" for our subjects. It would be a great game for in the car.

First Grade, Reading, Set Six

We started On Yonder Mountain by Millie Howard. The chapters are divided in half, and so she reads half a chapter each day (about 5 pages) and then we talk about it. We have been able to add new words to our "vocabulary letter" almost every day. For the last three chapters of the book, K. read the first half of the chapter and I read the last half so we could finish the book in this set of weeks.

I picked up the book The Reading Corner: Ideas, Games, and Activities for Individualizing Reading by Harry W. Forgan from a "free table" at a support group meeting. It has some really neat ideas and so I am using the activities it has for teaching Comprehension Skills.

• The first thing is learning to pick out the Main Idea.
• Find the M.I. -- take index cards and write four or five sentences. One of them is the main idea and the others are supporting details (put them in random order). Read the sentences together and have your child pick out the main idea. Here is an example:
• Ann puts on boots.
• Ann is ready to go out in the rain. (main idea)
• She puts on a raincoat.
• She puts on a hat.
• Category Tic Tac Toe -- play as regular tic-tac-toe, however you must prepare the game board ahead of time. In each section write three things that go together (dress, pants, blouse) and leave space for a fourth item. Before a player puts their X or O in a space, they must tell the category (clothing) of the items and add a fourth item (skirt).

 

• Main Idea and Details Hand -- I traced my hand on a sheet of paper. We read a paragraph in the reading book -- I had picked the paragraph out ahead of time. We discussed the main idea of the paragraph and wrote in on the palm of the hand. Then I had K. tell me the details in the paragraph and write them on the fingers. The main idea was that the children formed teams and built snow forts. Some details were that Sarah was on Jonathan's team, they made snowballs, they wore mittens, etc.
• Give Me a Name -- I found nine pictures in old magazines and cut them out. Then I wrote a main idea for each picture on an index card. I laid the pictures and cards out and had K. match them up.
• This week I had two pictures and had K. come up the the title for each.