“Preserving World History” Week 30 Fourth Grade
The Adventures of Tutankhamen (Fiction, Level 14, Stage 3) by Helen Chapman
A World Worth Keeping (Non-fiction, Level 14, Stage 3) by Julie Hamston
This week we read The Adventures of Tutankhamen, a historical fiction book about young King Tut’s courageous pre-coronation hippopotamus hunt, and A World Worth Keeping, a non-fiction book about how to preserve our world history through artifacts, monuments, and works of art. Both books were a huge hit in our house, but we especially enjoyed the way they worked together to build understanding about the value of our world’s history. Not only did we learn about Abu Simbel, Cappadocia, the Grand Canyon, the Great Wall of China, Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump, Kakadu National Park, the Taj Mahal, Machu Picchu, and Serengeti National Park, but we also learned about several things we can do to keep them around for future generations.
The activity I want to highlight this week is the writing portion of the Independent Assessment Booklet for both books. For each book 5 questions were provided, but the two best questions for us this week were: Choose a photograph that is used to illustrate this book and describe it completely in writing using lots of detail; and Pretend you are visiting one of the places featured in this book and write a letter back to one of your friends describing your trip and what you see there using the correct form for a friendly letter. Other questions required informational/explanatory writing skills, persuasive writing skills, narrative writing skills, and response to literature text-to-self skills, which are extremely helpful, but these two questions really made my fourth grader think the most, which is something I think is really important in building a great reader, writer, and life-long learner. As usual, we were more than pleased with the outcome of our time with AlphaSkills this week.
For more information about the AlphaSkills Read with Sarah curriculum and our family, see the AlphaSkills Blog Introduction.