Upper Grades English

The King who Rained by Fred Gwynne read-aloud



This is a book of idioms that have words that are homophones. In English, a king reigns, like Queen Elizabeth reigns over the UK, but the word sounds like the weather term "rains." Some of these words are 

Here are the idioms, with the homophones in italics. 

There was a king who rained for forty years. (reigned)
There are forks in the road.
He has a mole on his nose.
Lambs gamble on the lawn. (gambol - to play or frolic)
She has a frog in her throat.
She is a little horse. (hoarse)
I am a little deer. (dear)
I can hold up her train.
Next time he paints the house, he is going to give it two coats.
There is a head on his beer. 
All we get in the mail are big bills.
She is playing bridge.
Our family has a coat of arms.
Live in the present.
Children have bear feet. (bare)
Foot prince / blue prince (foot prints / blue prints)
Some boars are coming for dinner. (bore = someone who is boring)
Fairy tails (tales)

If you are interested, you can learn more of these words (lists by grade level groups). Open the words lists and click on the words for a definition and to hear it used in a sentence.

The Snowy Day by Jack Ezra Keats



This book, written in 1962, is a favorite story for kids all over the US. It won the Caldecott Award, which means it was the chosen as the best picture book of the year. In 1962, it would have been OK to have a snowball fight. It would have been soft snow, but today it is not allowed to throw snowballs at other students (so don't do it!). 

This book is written in the past tense and has loads of words related to winter.
winter - talvi
snowsuit - toppapuku
pile - kasata
drag - vetää
track - jälki
smack - hakata
snowball fight - lumisota
snowman - lumiukko
(snow) angels - lumienkeli
melt - sulattaa

Choose 10 irregular verbs from the story and write their basic forms. (woke up, had fallen, could, put, ran, sank, was, fell, thought, knew, made, slid, went, told, took, got, felt, slept, gone)

Zin! Zin! A Violin by Lloyd Moss Read Aloud



Review the names of different instruments from an orchestra and what we call groups of performers:

Trombone - pasuuna
trumpet - trumpetti
french horn - käyrätorvi
violin - viulu
flute - huilu
clarinet - klarinetti
oboe - oboe
bassoon - fagotti
harp - harppu

solo - soolo
duo - duo
trio - trio
quartet - qvartetti
quintet - kvintetti
sextet - sekstetti
septet - septetti
octet - oktetti
nonet - nonet