Island of the Blue Dolphins

When Gregory read this a few months ago, I never got around to it. Fast forward to Mother's Day on Manhattan Beach, and while the boys dug in the sand, I almost finished the book. There is a lot of great material to work with . . .

The children saw a red ship arriving with a pair / pear of red sails.

The villagers of Ghalas-at feared the Aleuts would sail / sale away and not pay them fairly for the otter pelts. 

And who doesn't need more practice with their, there and they're!

Their / There / They're weren't many tall trees on the island.

They were afraid the Aleuts would return to their / there / they're island to hunt more otters.

Their / There / They're afraid that the Aleuts will leave without paying them an equal share, so the villagers watch the Aleuts from afar and count the number of pelts they take.

So far, I've worked on homophones, possessive noun forms (and there is ample material here with the dogs' lair and all the other animals mentioned), and coordinating conjunctions. I do have notes on subordinating conjunctions, but I haven't yet added them to the packet. I find the best way to incorporate them is to work with the most well known, time and sequence. Students tend to use when, before and after in their writing naturally. Getting them to understand the structure and add a comma is a first step to introducing the many subordinating conjunctions that exist in the English Language. 

Most of the books I've worked on have been entertaining or delightful. This, however, was not. The part that I took away, and would want my children to take away from reading this story, is how this woman persevered.

When I visited the San Gabriel Mission on my son's field trip this year, lo and behold, a picture of the lone woman of San Nicolas Island.