Fifth grade read Laura Amy Schlitz' The Bear Skinner in Library. Schlitz was our Newbery visiting author last year and as part of her visit she told this story to the then fourth graders. Students enjoyed hearing again and seeing the beautiful illustrations of this story, in which the middle daughter is the star (!). We've also read Margaret Mahy's short story Perdita and Maddy, from her collection The Door in the Air and Other Stories. Ask your daughter how returning library books led to an around-the-world yacht race. We then read Tomi Ungerer's dreamy Fog Island, set in Ireland. From there we jumped to the Middle Ages, reading I Feel Better with a Frog in My Throat: History's Strangest Cures. We learned about leeches and mustard plasters, among other unappealing treatments. We then read Interactive Middle Ages, in which we followed different threads of the story. Sometimes we were woodworkers or knights or ladies in waiting. Sometimes we died of the Plague, other times we survived.
Fifth graders have been presenting their partner book projects in class. They chose and read a book as a twosome, and are now either presenting the book verbally, including something about the book upon which they enthusiastically agree, and another aspect about which they politely disagree; or they design and draw a six panel cartoon using the same information.
