Homeschool Discoveries

It’s been a busy month for read-alouds at the Hill Family Homeschool (links to my blog posts reviewing each book):

Miss M and I finished Secret of the Andes for the Newbery Through the Decades Challenge and we also read What Cabrillo Found by Maud Hart Lovelace.   Our current read aloud is Brighty of the Grand Canyon — we’re about half-way through, so I’ll be reviewing that one in May.

With the boys I also selected a book for the Newbery Through the Decades Challenge — we read Red Sails to Capri by Ann Weil.   Prior to Red Sails, the boy and I had a lot of fun reading Detectives in Togas by Henry Winterfield.  We liked it so much that we just started the sequel (The Mystery of the Roman Ransom) today!

I’ve read to Miss M at bedtime for many years (Daddy is the bedtime reader for the boys unless he is away from home), and this year I’ve made it my habit to start nearly every school day reading with the boys (ages 6 and 8, with the 3-year-old sometimes listening and sometimes not).

We start out with Bible reading, and most of the year I’ve just read from a standard NIrV Bible, taking turns with having Mr E (the 8 year old) reading some as well.  Mr K (the six year old) would often wander off during Bible time.  Inspired by a friend’s facebook post, I decided to pull out the Action Bible (see it here on Amazon) that I bought for the boys for Christmas.  I originally bought it thinking that Mr. E would be reading it to himself — he is really into graphic novels these days.  But the reality is that it has mainly sat collecting dust.  I generally have a strong dislike for reading comic/graphic novel style books out loud.  But with a year of Beast Academy for math under our belts (a math text written in a comic/graphic style), I decided I could probably put up with the Action Bible, especially if it draws in Mr. K.

We’ve been reading it for a few days now and it seems to be doing the trick.  Mr. K is riveted and the boys are asking, “Can we read just a little more Bible?”  I prefer to have the Word of God more directly communicated, rather than the Bible stories retold — but I think there is room for both in the lives of some young boys. 🙂

After Bible time, our morning reading time usually consists of a chapter or two from our current read-aloud, and then maybe a shorter picture book selected by Mr. J (the three year old).   Some days I ask the boys to bring me books from our “history book basket.”  I pick out a variety of non-fiction books related to our current history studies and keep them all together in a basket (well, really a crate).  I find the boys don’t pick them on their own very often, so I need to encourage them to pick something during our morning read aloud time.  Their favorite series is probably the “You Wouldn’t Want to…” series from Scholastic (see a list of 75 of them here).  This month we read You Wouldn’t Want to Be A Roman Soldier, You Wouldn’t Want to be a Roman Gladiator and You Wouldn’t Want to Live in Pompeii.  This series never fails to include all the “juicy” parts — like what weapons the soldiers used, how people died, and so on.  That, along with humor in the text and illustrations make this series a favorite with my boys.

Book-of-the-month award from Mr. J goes to Super Truck by Steven Savage (here on Amazon). This cute picture book about a truck with a secret identity that saves the town during a snow storm was requested nearly daily when we had it checked out from the library.  And Mr. J is still asking where he could find this book, and it’s been close to two weeks since I returned it to the library.  I think we’ll have to check it out again — or maybe buy our own copy!

Linking up with Read-Aloud Thursday @ Hope is the Word.