Dangerous Jobs for Kids and Adults” Week 10 Fourth Grade
Hat’s Off (Fiction, Level 12, Stage 3) by David Hill
Dangerous Jobs (Non-fiction, Level 12, Stage 3) by John T. Rankin
The Read with Sarah model at this level matches fiction and non-fiction titles that connect in an interesting way, and encourages the student to think about how the books are alike and different and why they are paired together. The Guided Lessons for these two books are designed to help students learn about adults who work in dangerous situations and how some jobs that kids do can be dangerous too.
Dangerous Jobs is full of interesting information and captivating photographs about adults who have jobs that are far from boring. From Police Search and Rescue Workers to Demolition Workers and Bodyguards to Stunt People, this book is one that is sure to catch the attention of any 9 or 10 year old girl or boy. My nine year old particularly liked the pages about the Demolition Workers because he thought it was “super cool” that some people blow up things for a living, but he also found the entire book interesting because the people featured have such different jobs from his own parents. This resource was a great way for our homeschool family to talk about why we’ve chosen to homeschool and what that means for the kind of work Mama and Daddy do. It was also a great opportunity for Elijah and his little brother to talk about the aspirations they have for what kind of job they will do when they grow up.
Hat’s Off is a fictional story about a girl named Fleur who has the important job of checking up on her elderly neighbor when she returns from school each day. Although this job seems somewhat normal most of the time, it becomes a dangerous one when the neighbor Mr. Burrows has an accident and Fleur has to figure out a way to save him. This book was a huge hit with my fourth grader because, due to our full-time travel lifestyle, we don’t have the same neighbors every week, but we are around a lot of older people, and this book really helped him think about how he could be brave if he found an elderly neighbor in trouble one day. This book also prompted me to take the opportunity to share with him a story about the time that my sister, when she was 9 years old, found our great-grandmother collapsed on the front porch from a stroke and had to run for help.
The activity I want to highlight this week is the writing activity that asked my fourth grader to think about why these two books were paired together. As usual, this question caused some great critical thinking! For more information about the AlphaSkills Read with Sarah curriculum and our family, see the AlphaSkills Blog Introduction.