During the 2014 school year, Mrs. Leslie Lindsay, a teacher at Harmony School of Science in Austin, incorporated my book, The Knighting of Sir Kaye, as part of her ESL classes’ semester reading project. Students read weekly assignments from the book and listened along with the audio version. Later they discussed each week’s assignment in class.
In addition, the class had activities based on classroom support materials available for teachers and students on my website. This included some excellent work on the Sir Kaye coloring sheets, which may not sound like a big deal, but since the illustrations in my book are in black and white, I really enjoyed seeing the color added to them!
At the end of the semester, I visited each of the ESL classes to do a Q&A with the students, wrapping up every classroom visit with a Sir Kaye trivia contest. I thoroughly enjoyed the time I spent with the students at Harmony School and think they had a great time too. Below are a few photos from my visit and also an enthusiastic review from Leslie that she posted on Amazon.com for The Knighting of Sir Kaye. I’m looking forward to returning next year to talk about the second Sir Kaye book in the series, The Lost Castle Treasure, which will be completed this fall.
For those that would like to take a (medieval-style) stab at it, I’ve included the Sir Kaye trivia questions below.
Mrs. Lindsay’s Amazon.com Sir Kaye Review
I teach ESL Classes for students learning English, and my 6th, 7th, and 8th Grade students loved this book. We read a few chapters a week, discussed them, listened to some chapters on audiobook, and did various comprehension activities. I got in contact with the author Don Winn, and he sent me special coloring sheets from various scenes in the story, and as a culminating event he came out to the school and we had a spectacular “Author Question and Answer Session” which was personalized for each grade level. It was a great experience for the students to meet a published author and ask questions about the book, as well as questions about what being an author is like. I’m sure the students will remember this visit for a long time.
About The Knighting of Sir Kaye
Sir Kaye Trivia Questions
Level One – Easy Trivia
What does Reggie lose toward the
beginning of the story?
What is Kaye’s Father’s name?
Does Reggie have any siblings?
Does Kaye have any siblings?
What is the name of Kaye’s village bully?
What animal ends up as the village
bully’s pet?
What name did Charles give the wolf that
he found?
What is Reggie’s favorite food?
Level Two – Medium Trivia
What is the name of the woods the boys explore?
What country is Queen Vianne’s homeland?
What is the name of the queen’s lady in waiting?
What is the real name of Meg’s (Kaye’s little sister’s) horse?
What do Kaye and Reggie find in the village bully’s hideout?
Who is Sir Gregory?
Level Three – Hard Trivia
What did Reggie call Charles’ secret hideout?
What does Kaye tell Reggie the name Kadar means?
What is a tourtelete?
What did Kaye and Reggie call the gang that kidnapped Beau?
What is Charles’ mother’s name?
Level Four – Thinking Questions
What is chivalry?
Why did Charles stop being Kaye’s best friend and start being mean to him?
Why did the queen make a twelve-year-old boy into a knight?
Good friends help each other and learn from each other. Do you think Reggie learned anything from Kaye? What? Do you think Kaye learned anything from Reggie? What?
What do you think is going on in Eldridge that Kaye’s father is so worried about?
If you’d like the answers to any of these questions, let me know!
