Fun with Reading

Today at St. Gabriel was largely a success. Once again, we divided the children (44 today) into three groups by age. I started out with the oldest age group, the 10-13 year olds. My activity for the day was reading. I began to read Wayside School Gets a Little Stranger by Louis Sachar to the oldest group of kids. This book is a very silly book that Josh, Braveen and I had all read and loved as kids. Going into it, I was a little nervous that the kids might get bored, but they really enjoyed it! I read aloud to them for 30 minutes, reading almost 30 pages, without losing anyone’s attention. Then we played a reading comprehension game, during which I quizzed the kids about what happened in the book. They were also very engaged and attentive during this activity, and most of them knew all the answers to my questions!

For the younger age groups, I read Ten Little Rubber Ducks by Eric Carle aloud and then we made tissue paper pictures based off of the book. Most kids made duck pictures, but we also had a few seals, an octopus, and even an elephant. Both age groups (the 8-9 year olds and the 5-7 year olds) really got into this activity. I think hands-on art projects are the way to go. I was also impressed that both age groups were calm and attentive while I was reading.

While I did reading activities, Josh and Braveen did other activities. Josh taught history, continuing what he started teaching last Thursday. Braveen led stretches outside, taught the kid the names of body parts (including the names of many muscles and bones for the older kids), and played games like “Simon Says.”

Tomorrow, we plan to operate in the same way, though our activities will be slightly different. My activities will still be centered on reading. I will continue reading Sachar’s book our oldest students, since they seemed to like it a lot and I want to continue to work on reading comprehension with them. For the 8-9 year olds, I think I will read them Terrible Teresa and Other Very Short Stories by Mittie Cuetara, which is a book that contains VERY short stories – each is 4 sentences long and has 4 pictures. They are cute and silly. After we read the book I will have each student make up a story in the same manner. First I will have them write 4 simple sentences, and then I will have them illustrate it in a comic-book fashion, following the example from the book. For the youngest kids, I will read Clifford the Big Red Dog by Norman Bridwell and then lead another craft relating to the book. I am still working out the details of our craft, but I think it will involve having each kid draw a picture of their made-up ideal pet. The kids are creative, and they seem to like the to use their imaginations and make drawings. Hopefully these activities will be age appropriate and fun for the kids. We’ll see how it goes tomorrow, but I think today was another step in the right direction!