Book Party!

Reading aloud is a very integral part of our homeschool. I loved reading to the girls when they were younger and am so glad I didn't stop when they became proficient readers. We still start almost every morning with a read aloud. Some of the books are just for fun, some are books I know they would never read on their own, and others are actual books that we read as part of our curriculum.

Our most recent read aloud was The Red Pencil by Andrea Davis Pinkney

When we finished the book we decided to have a little party to explore some of the ideas presented in the book. The book takes place in the Darfur region of Sudan and tells the story of a young girl whose family is forced to flee their home and stay in a refugee camp. Because of the trauma the girl experienced, she no longer talks. Eventually she is given a red pencil and yellow paper with lines. As she begins to learn to write, she also finds her voice and resumes talking.

The book is written in free verse - a style we aren't very familiar with, but is becoming more and more popular among authors. There were several reference to Fanta, so of course we had to indulge.

Just as Amira learned to draw "letter bugs", we too drew letter bugs.

There was also a section which had poems about family members, with drawings of half their profile. So we, too, wrote poems and drew half profiles of each other.

None of us loved the story, but after our little party, we were much more appreciative of what we had read and I'm sure we'll all remember it better.