We spent this week in reading enjoying some children's literature - basic? Maybe. But serious fun. And a great way to introduce and review some important concepts that we'll need to use later in the year as we dive into novels. We covered plot maps and reviewed all of the different parts of a plot (hook, problem, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution, conclusion). We practiced labeling the parts of the different stories on the plot map, and then moved on to characterization. Ask your student about direct and indirect characterization - they should be able to tell you that direct characterization is when the author specifically tells you about the character, and indirect characterization is when we have to put different clues together to infer what the character is like.
Looking ahead to next week, we're starting our first unit in Social Studies: Early Human Civilizations. In reading, we will continue discussing characterization and move on to the real theme of the year: What is a hero? We'll start by reading a few articles on the topic and then work our way into several projects, culminating with a viewing of the first Harry Potter film and a project to lead us into our first novel study.
It's going to be a great year, and I'm glad you'll be along for the journey!