Week 9- Fourth Grade

“Kids with Diabetes” Week 9 Fourth Grade

Alice’s Diary (Non-fiction, Level 12, Stage 3) by Marie Gibson

This week we learned about a little girl named Alice and how she takes extra special care of her body because of a disease called diabetes. The Guided Lesson for this book is designed for use as a continuation of the discussion from last week’s book The Spencer School Sleepover to help students think about how some kids have to take extra special care of their bodies when participating in school activities. The star of this book Alice is a young girl who is having health problems and discovers she has diabetes, and throughout the book she outlines her experience from diagnosis to coping with the disease at school, during special events, and at home. This resource provided a particularly rich learning experience for us, as it would most homeschool students because many times, unless a student has a close friend or family member living with a disease or disability, the concept of taking extra care with his/her body is something completely new. We were able to talk this week about how thankful we are to have healthy bodies and also to have access to healthcare when we are fighting illnesses and diseases.

The activity I want to highlight this week is the Knowledge Chart. During this activity Elijah was able to write about his prior knowledge of diabetes, what he learned about it from this book, where he found the new information, things he would still like to know, and where he might find this information. This was an outstanding way for him to build on his comprehension of the book and go to the next step in understanding the content. We also enjoyed learning about the food pyramid and appropriate portion sizes and meal times this week as well.

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