Every Wednesday, please visit our ILS Blog for a brief sneak peek from one of our outstanding teachers, highlighting what a visitor might observe when walking into our classrooms on any given morning. This week our “Walk-in-Wednesday” series features a visit to 5th grade, and a delightful look of what might be happening in literature class with Miss Kristin Malcolm, should you pop in for a visit.
Interested in seeing more? Join us each week when we are in school for a Walk-in-Wednesday tour to observe our students and teachers in action and experience a classical, Christian education at Immanuel. Stepping through our red doors, we will welcome you with the joyful sounds of learning, from poems and jingles in the lower grades, to great science experiments or discussions of literature or theology in our older grades. Throughout our building, the wonderful sights and sounds of students and teachers engaged in active learning can be witnessed in person, but if you haven’t yet had a chance to visit us, or you would simply like to get more of a feel for the learning in our different grades, we are now offering a weekly glimpse into our classes here on the ILS Blog.
Please visit the blog each week as we share additional “Walk-in-Wednesday” features, or enjoy looking back to see peeks into other grades and classes!
On a given morning, a visitor to the 5th Grade classroom of ILS is likely to walk in on a literature class. Literature is often a favorite class for the students, as they are naturally drawn to narrative, adventure, and characterization. It is also a favorite class of mine to teach. During our literature discussions, I often learn things from the students that I had not yet thought of, though I have read these books five or six times each. I love to hear my students' perspectives on the great themes of life which arise in literature.
In class, we often read our literature book together. Rather than simply assigning reading for homework (as might happen in a high school literature class), I like to read the text with the children. Sometimes I read to them, allowing them to sit on the carpet, close their eyes, and imagine the story in their minds. Other times, we "play-read" the chapter. This is a favorite activity for the students. Each character is played by a certain student-- that student reads all the lines of the character, as accurately and dramatically as possible. Another student is the narrator, interjecting, for example, "laughed Robin Hood" in the middle of Robin's lines. This form of reading is lively, dramatic, and interesting; the students beg to be their favorite characters, and delight in using dramatic tones, body language, random accents, etc. :)
What a gift good literature is, and it is a wonderful class to teach!
