A Different Way to Do Book Reports

 Rugrat recently finished an abridged version of War of the Worlds. I wasn't sure how well she'd like it but she was pretty invested in it to my surprise. 

I've been wanting to incorporate more book reports in her literature this year. But she has a hard time getting her thoughts onto paper. What's more, knowing that she is going to have to fill a page or two just completely overwhelms her until she is not capable of doing anything.

So, I had mostly avoided them up to this point. Admittedly, not the best way to deal with it, but I still tried to throw one in here or there ... usually just hoping at some point things would click and make it easier.

This year, however, I stumbled across another way to do book reports. It seemed slightly less intimidating so we gave it a go as she finished up this first book. 

These are called Book in a Box. They are supposed to be put together in a shoebox but I decided to make them a little smaller for storing. So we used a file folder that has been folded in the center to be a little wider.

I took this picture at a slant hoping to make it easy to see how wide the spine is but it didn't cooperate. 

The way you do it is to pick five things about the book - representatives so to speak - and then write a small paragraph about each and tag them.

The initial paragraphs were stilted and these are certainly not on grade level yet. But it is essentially a 5 paragraph basic book report. The main character is there and a summary of sorts without giving away the ending but including events in the book.  

She never balked at any of the paragraphs, only the occasional sentence I pointed out that needed some editing. I may have her do a couple more of these and then use one to show her how she can take those paragraphs and combine them into a proper book report.

I've tried before to teach her to break these things into bites and then combine them but she has always had a hard time doing even that. This broke it down while distracting her with the crafting.

And it was pretty fun too.

Definitely an add to our curriculum for the better.