Wednesday, August 2, 2017

Novel Studies

For English, we have tried many text book type approaches. These haven't been overly successful if I am being truthful. We tried an American curriculum, which I purchased at rather a big expense, and we haven't actually finished it, but we have done bits and pieces in , and this one has been.

 The most successful one. It is called Lightning Literacy. It studies great classics, such as A Christmas Carol, To Kill a Mockingbird, and also the Hobbot. It looks at short stories and poetry to, and in looking at novels, and wonderful language, it teaches the kids about grammar, and the conventions of language.

I got the grade 8 set for the kids a couple of years ago. It is still relevant to them even in grade 10. It covers the same thing asthey should be covering for stage 5, and the literature is quality, and perfect for their learning.

Here's is a link to Hewitt Homeschooling.

https://www.hewitthomeschooling.com/Materials/mLLJrHigh.aspx

I am actually about to check out their senior school English curriculum....

The kids also select a novel they would like to read and do a bit of work on.

Maddie chose, "A Wrinkle In Time" . She is a huge fan of reading and at the moment has a list of 42 classic novels she has intentions of reading over the coming year. She will more than likely do it, being a fan of Dickens, Austen and the like really helps....

Jacob read The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. He is not so much a fan of reading, and up until last year my kids enjoyed read alouds. I think I may start up reading aloud again. You are never too old to listen to someone read to you.

When the kids do novel studies, a quick google search will always come up with a brilliant unit of work and generally some great independent work for the kids to do.

Here is a link to the two that the kids used recently

A Wrinkle In Time

https://www.scholastic.com/content/dam/teachers/activities/migrated-files-in-body/a-wrinkle-in-time-bookfile.pdf

Scholastic is amazing for great, easy to follow independent research.

And this one has a pretty big list of novel studies too.

http://www.glencoe.com/sec/literature/litlibrary/midsummer.html

This next one I think you will be truly thankful for...
http://www.teachershub.com.au/resources/teacher-notes/



This one is a list of all Jackie French historical kid s books, with a list of the links to the Australian Curriculum, and related activities. It's a beauty too.

http://www.bookvibes.com.au/jackie_french/2014_History_Jackie%20French.pdf

A List Of great novels
https://cbca.org.au/short-list-2017

Walker books teachers notes


http://www.walkerbooks.com.au/Teachers/Classroom-Ideas

Pan Macmillan teaching notes


https://www.panmacmillan.com.au/teaching-notes/

 I really must stop.
Hope these are helpful. Let me know what you think, or maybe you have another great site you could share?
I will leave you with a photo of my favourite books...


Until next time
Lots of it
Mandy
Xxx











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