Fast and Easy Extension Activities for The Year of Miss Agnes by Kirkpatrick Hill
- There are several Year of Miss Agnes lapbooks and literature studies, although I did not see any free ones. Here is one from TPT, current price $8.00.
- Here is a unit study for the book, mostly consisting of lovely background information about key points in each chapter.
And, now on to the projects. This book nicely provides its own ideas for classroom activities, so I’ll just point them out and add a few of my own things.
Chapter 1:
- Alaskan Bush Pilot video (2 minutes)
- Have a meal with fish in it, or a meal cooked in fish oil.
Chapter 2:
- Take the rugs in your house out for an airing/beating. You can also air out your blankets.
- Have tea with milk. Compare it to tea without milk.
- Talk about where your children’s names come from and how they were chosen.
Chapter 3:
- Take the opportunity to wash your windows.
- Hang up new art in your schoolroom. You can print off pictures online (and place in frames to make them look fancier) or make your own art.
Chapter 4:
- Alaskan wildlife video (6 minutes)
- One of my children wanted to know what a “kind of squashed up” hat from the 1920s looked like, so we delved into the world of men’s fashion.
- Go through your family’s photos and talk about memories.
- A pair of sealskin mittens from Alaska in the 1950s with harness and pompoms
- Soaking, Wringing, and Scraping a Dried Moose Hide by people learning traditional methods (10.5 minutes)
- Make bread and/or duck soup. Or any other kind of soup your child is willing to pretend is duck soup and a fancier type of bread.
- How to make wooden snowshoes by hand (from Maine, not Alaska)
- How to make a pom pom (9 minutes)
- Info and photos about making Caribou boots
- Porcupine quill art (includes brief intro and then shows different sewing techniques). (3 minutes)
Chapter 5
- Have an art hour. No plan, just get out supplies and make art.
- How to margin a page (3 minutes)
- Make sure to play opera music (or any classical music) in the background. We love Beethoven’s Wig songs (they don’t have many on YouTube, so we get ours from Amazon). (affiliate link)
Chapter 6
- Have your child practice or invent a signature, so they can practice signing their name.
- Have your child memorize their birthday.
- Practice making perfect o’s, i’s, e’s, and other vowels.
Chapter 7
- Looked at printed maps of your area. Practice finding your way from place to place using the map, describing how you would use it to find where you want to go.
- Point out important places in your family’s history on the map. If your ancestors came from Peru or Ethiopia, or Philadelphia, find those areas and trace your family’s history to see how they might have gotten to where you are today.
- Discuss how your child got their nicknames.
- Sneak in extra math facts practice.
Chapter 8
- Practice lip reading
- Learn and/or practice sign language. Here is the alphabet.
- Practice lip reading by saying something to each other, but only moving your lips and trying to guess.
- Learn the braille alphabet from this site with other helpful braille information.
- Make a braille book for people who really want to have fun and have extra time.
- Practice summersaults, cartwheels, and climbing
- Play catch
- Invent a sign for your name in sign language.
Chapter 9
- Do laundry, bake bread, and do household chores like Maria
- Get a notebook and make a dictionary of spelling and hard words like Fred
Chapter 10
- Polly Wolly Doodle
- “Barb’ry Allen” played on a concertina
- Loch Lamond on concertina
- Cindy, on violin
- Hey Good Lookin’
- I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry
Chapter 11
- Make your own wall timeline. Decorate it with drawings.
- Play a quiz game. We found this Professor Noggin one to go very well with HBL B.
- Have your child draw what they did today. Show it off to a relative.
- Ask an older relative (or friend) to share a story about a time long ago when they were young.
- Look up folk tales from your family’s countries of origin. You might wish to prescreen those as some can be a bit graphic.
- Look at things through a microscope, or use the zoom lens on your phone or camera to view them up close.
- A video showing patterns in nature (3 minutes)
Chapter 12
- The King’s Choir singing (6 minutes)
- Read or reread a favorite fairy tale.
Chapter 13
- Make popcorn strings
- Make paper chains (assorted styles)
- You might want to watch the movie A Christmas Carol. Disney Plus has an animated version with Jim Carey.
- Have cookies with hot apple juice with cinnamon and sugar in it.
- Take pictures of your “class” and teacher.
Chapter 14
- Make a book about your child. Have them make their own. Try to use spelling and vocabulary words.
- Give them a special notebook to record their own stories. If they don’t like writing, give them a voice recorder or show them how to record their stories on tablets or other devices.
Chapter 15
- Video about Hudson Stuck (5 minutes)
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
- Do a multisensory book summary
- Take all your art, braille, sign language, timeline, and other activities and show them off to family and friends to bring them into your learning center.
Extras
(affiliate links)
