Welcome to the third year of Learning through Literature’s Homeschool Co-op Curriculum. If this is your first time here, this book: Hanna’s Cold Winter, is the eighth of 13 books that will be covered as part of our homeschool co-op year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States. The class has been created for 1st – 4th graders and is the culmination of three years of Learning through Literature together. If this is your first time looking around, please check out our first year, Learning the ABC’s through Literature. Or the second year, Learning through Literature for Homeschool Co-op.
Each year was inspired by Jane Lambert’s Five in a Row Curriculum and uses many of the same books, but with lessons, discussion questions, and printables reworked to be more useful for a homeschool co-op.
For this third year, Learning through Literature: Exploring the United States, we will take TWO classes to cover each book. If you are using this for a co-op, you will find “Class One” and further down the page, “Class Two”.
Thanks for stopping by!
Hanna’s Cold Winter
by Trish Marx
Class 1
Things I Need:
- The Hanna’s Cold Winter Book
- Map of the USA and Map of the World, especially showing Europe and the seven continents
- Learning the USA through Lit Journal – Hanna’s Cold Winter Add-In Pages 1st Class
- Scissors, Gluesticks, Pencils
Before the class: set out the new journal pages and the Hanna’s Cold Winter copywork page on their desk as you are setting up the class. Have your class helper(s) help the kids punch their new journal pages and add them to their binders.
Homework:
- Write a letter about a memorable experience from when you were younger. Start the story, “When I was little” Find a picture (or pictures) from childhood to go along with the story. If you can’t find any pictures, draw a picture instead.
- Learn the 7 continents and 5 oceans
As the Class is Arriving:
Encourage the students to complete the copywork on their desks. Those who are more proficient can trace and copy. Beginners, just trace. Usually, I give the class about 5 minutes (during which we play the quiet game), and just see how much they can get done.
Use this time to hang up maps, familiarize yourself again with the lesson, or set up any final notes or props.
Review:
For us, this class marked a return to co-op after a long winter break. Since we are starting a new region, you don’t really need to review anything – but in our case, since the class had been out of the habit of rehearsing the states for a while, we went through the three regions we have done so far: the Midwest, the West, and the Southwest.
Then tell the class you are going to zoom out, and have one more class discussing the 7 continents of the world.
Does anyone know all seven? If they completed the Learning through Literature for Homeschool Coops – the 2nd Year, they should be fairly familiar with the concept of continents. But if this is a new concept to your class, take a few moments to review the 7 continents and 5 Oceans. If this is a concept that some struggle with, consider adding it to the homework.
Introduce the Story:
While we were away we went into a new season … it is now officially: winter.
The name of our story is Hanna’s Cold Winter.
Ask the class: Who remembers what a “setting” is? (where and when the story takes place)
Remind them that a setting is both when and where the story takes place.
In our story today the setting takes place:
- On the Continent of Europe
- In the Country of Hungary
- In the City of Budapest
- On the Danube River
- During World War II
Explain that these are all descriptions that help us to understand the setting, or the context of the story.
Ask the class: What do we know about World War II? Does anyone know anything about what was going on in Europe all during World War II?
You can discuss that this was a WORLD war – meaning the whole war was affected. Supplies were low everywhere. Europe also suffered an extremely cold winter in the middle of this war to add to an already difficult situation. This is the setting for our book.
For many more notes and lesson ideas on World War II, see the lesson plans for All Those Secrets of the World.
This story is based on a true incident that happened during World War II.
Read the Story: Reading Comprehension
Tell the class that the story you’re about to read starts with “when I was a child” – but it doesn’t tell us who “I” is.
- While they are reading the story … can the figure out who “I” is?
- Can they figure out the family of “I”?
- Do they know the names of “I”s family?
You can either have them raise their hands and pause the story while you’re reading, or you can have them listen carefully, making note of the questions again, and asking who thinks they can answer your questions at the end.
In our class, I had them turn their copywork page over and write down his family and names as we read. This keeps everyone involved in the listening and helped me encourage the quieter students to participate as well.
Read the Story – reminding the class of the difficulties of war as you read.
Class Discussion & Review the Copywork:
Ask the class: How many figured out who is talking in the story? (Tibor) And Did you figure out the names of his family? (brother, Gabor; sister, Eva; Papa, Mama)
In addition to any questions that came up as you were reading the story, you may also ask some general ones like this:
- Did you all like this story?
- Would you have given up your straw mat or sandals?
- Do you have a favorite place to go as a family?
Cut and Glue:
After some general discussion on the story, have the students take out their binders and find the page with all the book cutouts. Have them cut out Hanna’s Cold Winter and glue it onto the World Map (it may be with the lesson from The Pumpkin Runner) somewhere around Hungary / Central Europe.
Language Arts Lesson: 1st Person / 3rd Person
Have one of the students read the Copywork out loud to the class. After the student has read it, point out that this story is written in the 1st Person.
Ask the class: Does anyone know what that means?
Ask the class: Can anyone think of another book we’ve read this year that uses 1st person? (Mailing May, among others)
Explain that sometimes, stories are written in the 3rd Person (someone outside of the story is telling the story). But this story is written by a person that is in the story.
(2nd Person is when someone is telling you to do something. But you probably don’t need to mention that unless it comes up. If you’re feeling fuzzy on all of this, a quick summary can be found here.)
Homework / Lesson: Brainstorming & 1st Person Writing
Explain to the class that we are going to do some 1st person writing … but FIRST … we are going to brainstorm!
Ask the class: What is brainstorming?
I thought writeshop.com gave a perfect, kid-friendly description here:
Brainstorming is like grabbing an armful of craft supplies from the cabinet. First, you pull down yarn, glitter, glue, patterned papers, googly eyes, and craft sticks. You aren’t quite sure what you are going to make until your creation is nearly done. As you play with different crafty elements, you evaluate each one, sometimes deciding not to use it and other times heading back to the cabinet for more glitter or extra googly eyes!
Once you have established what Brainstorming is, try a simple example with the class.
You could try this, or come up with one of your own:
Explain that you can write something in two ways:
“I’m going to the park.”
But what does the park look like? Are there flowers and trees? What do they smell like? Do you smell rotting trash or lilac blossoms? Can you hear anything when you enter the park? Are there children laughing? Screaming? Birds whistling?
Use the 5 senses and descriptive words to build your story.
What do you experience as you enter the park?
A park that smells like rotting trash, where you hear with hysterical screams conveys a much different picture than a park filled with the aroma of lilac blossoms and the sounds of laughter.
Work together with the class to create your own descriptive sentence of the park you are going to.
Homework: Brainstorming Worksheet, Write their own 1st person story
Explain to the class that they will write their own 1st person story about one of these experiences. But sometimes it is helpful to do a little brainstorming before you write.
Encourage them to write down several ideas, descriptions, descriptive words, etc – and come to class next week able to share their ideas.
In class, we can decide what is the best idea to write about.
If you have extra time…
Review the States.
