Genius of Graeme Base #1 - Animalia

There is probably a good chance you have already seen Graeme Base's Animalia and enjoyed the fantastic illustrations and awesome, alliterative text. There are more ways to utilize this book, however, that just enjoying it as a nice picture book. It's a great tool to help your children with their language skills.

First thing, of course, is to read and enjoy the book--especially if you never have. For young children just learning the alphabet, it is enough to identify the letters and their sounds from the text and then hunt through the pictures for all the objects in them that begin with each letter. Each page is an adventure!

The next objective is vocabulary. I guarantee there are some words used which your child is not familiar with. That is very beneficial. After the initial read, I asked my children to go through the text and identify each word they weren't sure the meaning of. Then I sent them on a search in the dictionary. After learning the meaning of these words it was time to re-read the book with a new understanding. (Depending on your child and his or her age, you may still need to participate in this second reading to help explain context and help them fully understand.)

Vocabulary expansion is coupled with grammar in the next activity. There are two ways to do this. One is to have your child copy the text of Animalia, either by handwriting or typing, and color code the parts of speech. For example, each noun would be in blue, each verb in red, etc. The other way is to have your child identify each part of speech in a different reading. For example, one day the child would read the book and make a list of all nouns in the text as he goes, then the next day he would read the book and make a list of all adjectives, etc.

Finally, focus on alliteration. This book is superbly alliterative and a brilliant example to learn from and imitate. Have your child choose a topic on which to write about, like food or a sport or something else she is familiar with or excited about, and then letter by letter through the alphabet and using Animalia as an example, have your child write their own alliterative lines about his chosen topic, making sure to include all parts of speech in each line. It's hard, and it's meant to be. Often we can be alliterative, but we're cheap and lazy and silly in doing so and don't force ourselves to really stretch and include all parts of speech, which makes us think and expand our vocabularies further.

 I am sure there are more lessons this fabulous book could lend a hand with, but this is what I've come up with so far. Happy reading, writing, and homeschooling!