Nathan doesn't have a lot of homework (which I like). However, each month he has a book project to complete at home. I've already posted about his first book project from September, but for archival purposes I thought I would do a wrap-up of his other book project from the Fall semester 2014.
Matt and I's rule is that he must choose a worthy book for his book project. There are so many good books out there, and since this is an educational pursuit anything with "underpants", "wimpy", or "Yoda" in the title likely isn't going to fit the bill. (If you have a son in elementary school you may know what I mean!)
October's book project was focused on the main character. The students could select any book of their choosing as long as it had a strong main character they could write about. They then had to complete a character web about the main character and create an artistic representation of the main character. Students could use whatever media they preferred...paper, paints, clay, etc...even a pumpkin.
Nathan chose from the books in his case that he hadn't read yet, and ended up reading Gulliver's Travels. Though I usually frown on adapted versions, this one was a Classics Start, which retold the original story by Jonathan Swift at a 2nd-4th grade level.
Overall Nathan enjoyed this story, and perhaps he'll read the original some day (though he doesn't have much ambition to do so now). The biggest challenge he discovered with this book is that the names of characters and places are very strange and very long. The character web (which I didn't take a photo of) ended up to be more complex that it probably needed to be.
Though I was pushing for a pumpkin, for his main character creation Nathan painted a portrait of Gulliver using acrylic paints.
It looks just like him, right?!
For November's project, the students created a story "sandwich". Their teacher gave them pages with each piece (bread, cheese, tomatoes, meat, onions, lettuce) of the sandwich. The first page was a title page, the second told the characters and setting, the following pages had guide words at the top like "first, then, next, finally."
For this project, Nathan read the very first Hardy Boys book, "The Tower Treasure".
Nathan did a great job and received the highest score possible! Admittedly Matt and I did make him write out a rough draft which we edited, primarily for spelling and length (his original would not have fit!). But, I think that's part of the learning process too!
December was a short month, so instead of a book project Nathan kept a reading log. He also had to answer some reflection questions about the types of books he's reading and what he wants to read next.
You can't see everything on the log, but you get the idea. There's definitely twaddle on this list...Nathan is an excellent reader and every time he reads a classic he ends up liking it. But he would definitely lean towards much easier, "fun" selections if left to his own devices. In his defense, there are also some good books on this list too!
So, that was it...we're proud of Nathan and all the hard work he has put into his projects (though often with a little prodding).
I realized this weekend that Nathan has not even selected which book he's going to read for his January project....
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