Classics at Home

Ann Ward—an elementary teacher and home school mom—wrote The Classics at Home to introduce kids to important children's classics while at the same time guiding them toward better reading and comprehension skills. The non-consumable book covers The Works of Beatrix Potter, Charlotte's Web, Winnie the Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner, providing reading assignments and exercises for each one. For kids ages 4 and up, read the stories and exercises aloud; for students grade 3 and above, have them do the reading on their own. Assignments are manageable (usually between 7-10 pages of reading) and while challenging, not unnecessarily difficult.

Each lesson begins with a reading assignment in the book under consideration, followed by a list of severalvocabulary words from the reading for kids to look up and define. A series of questions for kids to answer in complete sentences comes next, and while Ward encourages older kids to actually write their answers, in the interest of time you may want to have them answer some or all of them orally (there are usually about ten questions). The final "Learning More" section isa list of three or four suggestions for further study and/or activities, from more vocabulary exercises to drawing pictures relating to the story.

This is a pretty straightforward little volume, easy to use and a good introduction to literature study for kids. If you want to go further, you might consider the literature guides from Progeny Press or Veritas Press, or even the much more in-depth Teaching the Classics which teaches students not just how to study specific works but how to interpret any literature they encounter.