Literature
Part of the Wonder and Explore Program
Jessica Turcios
K-3rd
Minimum required students: 6
Maximum available seats: 12
Class day: Thursday
Section A: 10:00 am – 11:.30 am
Section B: 12:30 pm – 2:00 pm
Books:
On the Banks of Plum Creek (a Little House novel) by L. Wilder Available at Amazon Here
A Child’s Book of Poems edited and illustrated by Gyo Fujikawa Available at Amazon Here
Little One-Inch & Other Japanese Children’s Favorite Stories ed. F. Sakade, ill. Y Kurosaki
Available at Amazon Here
Syllabus available August, 2023.
Each year, our Literature program includes a novel, a ‘small bites’ book, and folktales/fairy tales. Our novels are the iconic Little House on the Prairie series by Laura Ingalls Wilder. 2023/2024 features On the Banks of Plum Creek, commonly accepted as the ‘last’ book featuring Laura’s childhood. In Literature, we consider a “small bites’ book to be something short and easy to come back to throughout the year. We alternate between short stories and poetry. For 2023/2024, it’s time to move to poetry. Our selection, A Child’s Book of Poems, includes a wide variety of poetry and poets, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Eugene Fields, Lewis Carroll, and many more. The common thread between them all is the beautiful illustrations by Gyo Fujikawa, created specifically for this book. Lastly, we are excited to move to Asia for our folktale/fairytale component. Asia is quite large and diverse! We have chosen to narrow down the experience to Japan, in honor of our poetry illustrator, Gyo Fujikawa, an accomplished Japanese-American artist. Little One-Inch & Other Japanese Children’s Favorite Stories is a selection of short tales exploring the universal themes of folktales and fairytales.
Students enjoy these works during class. We encourage reading and storytelling at home, though all the texts are read in class. For the burgeoning reader, having a personal copy of the book to follow along is a wonderful way to grow their reading skills. If you would like your child to follow along in the text, please send a copy of the book to remain on campus with their supplies. We will return it at the end of the year.
Literature is the Thursday afternoon session of Wonder and Explore, paired with Math Adventures in the afternoon.