Our last three weeks of school will
be spent with the famous classic, Swiss
Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss.
He was born in 1743 in Switzerland.
What was happening in the colonies when he was 33 years old? Wyss loved the novel, Robinson Crusoe which is fictional story about a castaway on a deserted island near Chile. Pastor Wyss decided to write a story for his four sons in which he and
his family become a shipwrecked family!
Is that allowed? If you could
write a story in which you became one of the characters in a fictional novel,
who would you be?
Our reading begins today on Friday,
May 11. Today, you will receive your
books and assignments for a week. Your
new spelling words are on the back and come from this novel. Your spelling test will be on Monday, May
21. There are several times in the next
three weeks that you will have assignments even though we won’t have class or
be at school. You still must do your
homework. You only have to turn in your
Reading Logs one more time after today—next Friday, May 18!
Your “book report” on this book will
be to choose 5 of the 9 Activities of Culture (all nine will be given to
you—SMERFCAPS—and as you read, choose one event that occurs in the novel that
is an example of that activity.) For
example, you might want to choose the scene where the family builds their tree
house as an example of Architecture. YOU
MAY ONLY DO ONE EXAMPLE OF CULTURE. You
will have to either:
1. Draw
and color (no photocopying allowed) an illustration of that scene, and write a
caption for it, or,
2. Summarize the scene with at least 5
well-written sentences that include how that scene is an example of one of the
SMERFCAPS.
These five pages will be due on
Wednesday, May 30 and will count as a major project grade. Do a little on this project day by day and it
will be easy!
READING
ASSIGNMENTS for Week of Friday, May 11-Friday, May 18
For
Monday, May 14—Read
Chapters 1 and 2 in Swiss Family
Robinson. Decide which of the 5 Activities of Culture you will illustrate or summarize, and work on one of them.
For
Tuesday, May 15— BRING A BLANKET OR QUILT TO SCHOOL. Read Chapter 3 (HAVE AT LEAST one of your five Activity pages completed.
For
Wednesday, May 16—Read
Chapters 4 and 5. Choose your second scene to illustrate or summarize for your second SMERFCAPS.
For
Thursday, May 17—Read Chapter
6. Finish your second Activity page.
For
Friday, May 18—Read Chapter
7. Choose your third scene to illustrate or summarize for your third SMERFCAPS.
For
Monday, May 21—Read Chapters
8 & 9. Finish your third Activity
page.
SPELLING WORDS for
TEST on Monday, May 21.
Be able to write the definitions for the 6
words below.
1.
vehement = intense
2.
precipitous = cliff-like
or steep
3.
porcupine
4.
archery
5. allegory = fable
or parable
6.
tortoise
7.
iguana
8.
guava = a yellowish
tropical fruit
9.
reservoir = a
place where something is stored
10.
phenomenon =
an unusual occurrence
