I can't imagine most K-3 curriculums cover this much in language arts. For example, one of the activities we have done is to draw a picture to illustrate a literary device. I do not assign these types of things to my daughter, but she wants to do them in her free time sometimes. Last year she wrote a story all about her teapot from the personfication project which I meantioned above and we submitted this story to the Reading Rainbow Annual Story Writing Contest. A few of the assignments include memorizing poems, but this is an area which the curriculum needs to be beefed up a little.
Narration is a natural outgrowth of the lessons.
Passages from the books could be used for dictation, especially if it includes a sample of a lesson we just discussed. We make a game out of it. Just about every unit has several vocabulary words. Although it is suggested that you pick one lesson to do, I often discuss most of the suggested lessons. Then we move over to the table to make vocab cards and do any written exercise which may accompany the lesson.