“Ancient Men and Tiger Eyes” Week 16 Fourth Grade

Ancient Man of the Ice (Non-Fiction, Level 13, Stage 3) by Maggie Blake

Who Stole the Tiger’s Eye? (Fiction, Level 13, Stage 3) by Richard Gunther

Ancient Man of the Ice is a story about a mummified body discovered in the mountains of Austria and the discoveries made about the ages of man as a result. After reading this book my fourth grader came into the room with a smile on his face and said, “I bet you thought this was a fiction book, but it’s not! It’s about a real iceman!” What nine-year-old boy wouldn’t like learning about real 5,000 year old mummies and the like?! This week’s fiction book Who Stole the Tiger’s Eye? is 48 pages of riddles, clues, codes, and the like that puts the fourth-grade reader in the detective’s seat. When Elijah read this book, he couldn’t wait to tell the whole family how he solved each and every riddle, code, and mystery in the book all by himself!

The activity I want to highlight this week is the tried and true practice of surveying each book in the SQRRR format (front cover, publication page, Contents, pictures, illustrations, charts, Glossary, and Index) to teach print concepts. Sometimes I’m tempted to skip this step because my fourth grader is a big reader and he likes to read through books pretty quickly, but every single time we do this survey I’m so glad we did because it always seems to reveal something about the book that we would have missed otherwise. It really is amazing how the folks at AlphaSkills have thought of everything to help students and parents get the most out of each and every resource!

For more information about the AlphaSkills Read with Sarah curriculum and our family, see the AlphaSkills Blog Introduction.