9 Ways Bilbo Can Help with Language Arts

No, it doesn’t have to be Bilbo. It can be Pippi, Huckleberry, or even Old Yeller! Regardless of what you choose, there is not much more you can achieve with packaged language arts curriculum than you can with a good old-fashioned, well-written book. Over the years we have purchased a few books to guide us in our endeavors, but more often than not I end up just using good fiction from our bookshelves and scrap the “textbook-y” stuff.

In all of the following exercises I’ve used the first chapter of J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit, which is the current read-aloud for my oldest.

• Copywork/ Dictation- In choosing copywork and dictation, depending on the child’s age and ability, I have always looked for good sentence structure, quotes, proper and common nouns, varied punctuation and interesting content. For my 9-year-old, I would choose a dictation paragraph such as:
  

  ”Good Morning!” he said at last. “We don’t want any adventures here, thank you! You might try over The Hill or across The Water.” By this he meant that the conversation was at an end.

• Parts of speech- There are many ways to incorporate learning parts of speech. The most straightforward way is to simply copy a page in the book and have the child use colored pencils, a different color for each part of speech, to underline what you are choosing for him to work on. Though this is not particularly thrilling, it gets the job done. A better way is to find a descriptive paragraph, type it out in larger font, and provide your child with colored M&Ms or skittles. The child can place different colored ones on the parts of speech you ask for and eat the ones he gets right! You can also have a younger child act out the verbs and draw the nouns, or you can print out 3 x 5 cards with the part of speech names you want to work on and have the child jump from card to card as you slowly read each word. A wonderful paragraph (complete with adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, action and helping verbs, and proper nouns) I would choose would be:
  

  Gandalf in the meantime was still standing outside the door, and laughing long but quietly. After a while he stepped up, and with the spike on his staff scratched a queer sign on the hobbit’s beautiful green front-door. Then he strode away, just in time when Bilbo was finishing his second cake and beginning to think that he had escaped adventures very well.

• Dramatic reading/ Skit- Especially if you have multiple readers, this activity can be so much fun. Choose a section of the chapter and turn it into reader’s theater, a puppet show, or even have them memorize a number of lines each and put on a skit. The first exchange between Bilbo and Gandalf, only two or three pages long, is silly and full of drama and would make a perfect skit.

• Typing – Again, this may not be an exciting exercise, but it’s much more exciting to type out a favorite passage of a favorite book than it is to copy a boring example in a textbook! Any paragraph that has opportunities for italics, and the use of the shift key is great for practice.

• Sentence structure - One of the best ways to improve writing quickly is to vary sentence structure. Have your older child take one sentence and rewrite it a number of different ways. For example, the sentence He had a cloud of them about him already, and in the dim light it made him look strange and sorcerous could be written with a prepositional phrase first (In the dim light, looking strange and sorcerous, he sat among clouds of smoke rings), or with a dependent clause first (Because of the cloud of smoke hanging about his head and the dimness of the room, Gandalf looked quite strange and sorcerous) or even as a question (Didn’t he look strange and sorcerous sitting among those smoke rings in the dim light?)

• Fluency Reading – I have found that though my 9-year-old reads a number of grade levels above his own, when he reads aloud it is still a bit stilted and awkward. So I take a portion of a chapter we are reading and ask him to read it back to me a few times until it is fluid. A couple of times a week is all that is needed to improve skills in reading aloud.

• Memorize Poetry – Many classic novels have poetry as a part of their stories. Alice in Wonderland, James and the Giant Peach, and The Hobbit are just a few. Memorizing poetry not only puts wonderful language in a child’s brain and heart, but also trains the ear and can be useful in furthering rhythmic skill. The first “song” in The Hobbit begins like this:
  

  Chip the glasses and crack the plates!
  Blunt the knives and bend the forks!
  That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates-
  Smash the bottles and burn the corks!

  This passage wouldn’t be useful for a manners lesson, but it would be fun to perform!

• Punctuation - Take a paragraph in a book that has varied punctuation and type it out, removing all of the punctuation. Or you can type it up with mixed punctuation and have them correct it.

• Dictionary/ Thesaurus work – Good quality literature is a treasure trove of new vocabulary. Working a chapter ahead of whatever you are reading, find ten words and have your child look up the definition and part of speech. Then when those words pop up, the child will take note and recognize them in context. Some words in the first chapter of The Hobbit that I might find appropriate for my 9-year-old to define are: morsel, depredations, throng, conspirator, audacious, solemn, dignity, and rune.

I’m sure you could come up with many more ways to shake up a chapter in your favorite read-aloud! I’m fully convinced that children learn best when soaking up wonderful language from well-written literature that has stood the test of time.

Christine is a Christian, homeschooling mom to three boys and a girl, ranging in age from 9 to 2 years old. She is a musician by trade, eclectic in homeschool style, and continues to grow and learn along with her children in this journey of life and discipleship at home. Visit her blog at Fruit in Season.

Tags: Bilbo Baggins, Copywork, Drama, homeschooling, Language Arts, Making Language Arts Fun, Memorization Skills, Old Yellar, Parts of Speech, punctuation, Reading Fluency, The Hobbit, Typing, Using Resources

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