Our Family Read-Alouds:
Toy Dance Party by Emily Jenkins
Oh my gosh, this book is pure fun! This is a sequel to the book Toys Go Out, which we read to Scout when she was 4 and then again last year. I haven't been able to find this at the library so this was a Christmas present for the kids. I was able to get the library binding edition on Amazon for 8 bucks : ) I just love hard back books! It's really beautiful and one that we will treasure for a long time. River caught right on to all the fun characters and followed all the sarcasm and silliness. This was a perfect family bedtime book. We are looking forward to reading Toys Come Home.
Oh my gosh, this book is pure fun! This is a sequel to the book Toys Go Out, which we read to Scout when she was 4 and then again last year. I haven't been able to find this at the library so this was a Christmas present for the kids. I was able to get the library binding edition on Amazon for 8 bucks : ) I just love hard back books! It's really beautiful and one that we will treasure for a long time. River caught right on to all the fun characters and followed all the sarcasm and silliness. This was a perfect family bedtime book. We are looking forward to reading Toys Come Home.
We are all enjoying this fun family
read-aloud. This is River's first time hearing this classic tale.
We have read it a couple of times with Scout but she's enjoying
is as well and she is doing some extension activities like drawing a picture of
everything Elmer packed in his knapsack and figuring out how many
tangerines he has left in each chapter. I love the all the kooky
characters in this story and the perct 3-5 page chapter lengths. We plan
to read the next 2 books in the series which will be a first for all of us.
First of all, I am super excited that Scout is actually reading chapter books on her own. Yay! I thought this day would never come. Now, Scout has been reading for almost 3 years now, she is a good reader and can read almost anything, but during "read for fun" time she has always preferred to just look at books and only read bits and pieces of them and she would much prefer that I just read to her (which of course we still do a lot of) So this year I instituted SSR (silent sustained reading) for her which has actually turned out to be one of our favorite times of the day. We sit by each other on the couch and she reads her book and I read my book ( I know, I actually get to read - it's brilliant! lol!) This way, I am modeling reading for her and she can ask for support with any difficult words. We started with simple books like Frog and Toad and Amelia Bedelia. After a couple months, I found a website online called Book Adventures which sort of a free online version of Accelerated Reader. I wanted to make sure that she was actually reading the books, without having to quiz her on every Fancy Nancy book (grin). She takes online quizzes on the books that she reads and then gets points based on the difficulty of the book. It didn't take long for her to figure out that the chapter books are worth 5 or 6 plus points. Well, that was just the motivation she needed and we know have our very own chapter book reader : ) She tunes the rest of the world out when she is reading. River and Ryder are playing and banging things all around and she is in her own world. Yesterday she said to me, "Mama, can I please read a little longer. I just want to find out what happens next. I just love reading so much!" There are no words for how happy this made me...
I just discovered these Tales from the Odyssey books and I feel like we have hit the jackpot. We have been studying Ancient Greece so it could not be more perfect timing. She is already very familiar with the Greek gods and goddesses so everything sort of makes sense to her as she is reading. The size font, chapter size and book lengths is perfect for her reading level. There are 6 books in the series and the Denver library has these cute little hardback books that are much sturdier than the magic treehouse books. I would love to eventually own a set of these.
Scout's read aloud: The Usborne Greek Myths for Young Children This book is gorgeous! This is one I would definitely love to own. The illustrations are incredible, the myths are broken up into the perfect 2 or 3 page length, and they are "toned down" a bit for children, but definitely not "watered-down" too much from the classic myths. This goes along with our Story of The World
curriculum and we have really enjoyed these ancient stories.
River's Read-Aloud: Mr. Popper's Penguins by Richard and Florence Atwater
I can actually remember finding this book in my 3rd grade classroom "library" and reading it. Such a cute little silly story.
The Happiness Project Gretchen Ruben.
This book surprised me. I didn't want to like, but it ended up really inspiring me. I am starting my own "happiness project" beginning on my 30th birthday in June... stayed tuned : )
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green.
This book is incredibly popular right now and took forever to reserve at the library. It's good. I think there's probably a lot more to it than meets the eye. I like John Green a lot. This is not my favorite book of his. I think I liked Looking For Alaska for some reason, but this is definitely good.
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