Category Archives: Audiobooks

Read Aloud Thursday–Ginger Pye by Eleanor Estes

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We’ve been out of our routine this week because we went out of town while Steady Eddie was off work for Labor Day.   Re-entering normal life after a trip is always problematic for me for some reason–I LOVE to travel and would spend my entire life on a perpetual vacation if I could.  ;-)   After getting home Tuesday night, all we did on Wednesday was play, do some laundry, go to the park to play some more, and finish our chapter book read-aloud, Ginger Pye.  This was a great way to spend a day of re-entry, I think.  :-)

Ginger Pye was awarded a well deserved Newbery Medal in 1952.    It’s the story of siblings Jerry and Rachel Pye and their little dog, Ginger.  Jerry and Rachel earn enough money to purchase a puppy from their neighbor, and little Ginger turns out to be a lovable and intelligent pup.  However, tragedy strikes on Thanksgiving Day when Ginger is stolen, or at least comes up missing.  Much of the story revolves around Jerry and Rachel’s attempts to get Ginger back.  It’s a simple story, really, and not one in which a whole lot of action takes place.  It’s more about the inner lives and workings of children, a theme I always find interesting, amusing, and instructive.  Jerry and Rachel suspect a certain Unsavory Character, he of the yellow hat, as Ginger’s abductor, but unfortunately, this Mysterious Footstepper stays just on the periphery of their normal trek around their friendly little town of Cranbury.  It’s just enough to make this story “deliciously frightening,” as Anne Shirley might say.

In addition to this book being a gentle mystery, it is also full of interesting and entertaining little vignettes.  This characteristic places Ginger Pye squarely in the category of books I like best–those with stories-within-the-big-story.  For example, there’s the story of the Vertical Swimmer, the Pyes’ friend who swims up and down under the water, rather than horizontally, on top of the water.  Rachel Pye has the ability to make even the most mundane of occurences seem exciting, or at least interesting, so all of these little stories work together to create a rich overall story in which characterization is the real star.  The Pye family is just cozy and interesting.  I think this explanation of the family’s dependence on Mr. Pye, “a famous bird man,” says it best:

[Rachel] dropped her dishcloth and looked pleadingly at her mother.  Her mother nodded her head.  “Call in Mr. Pye,” she said, referring to the way the men in Washington always spoke.  “Call in Mr. Pye,” they’d say whenever they got in a bird jam.  This was not a bird jam.  It was a dog jam and a dishwashing jam.  But in this family it did not matter what sort of a jam it was.  “Call in Mr. Pye” suited every occasion.

 I really, really enjoyed reading this book aloud to my girls.  I think they enjoyed it almost as much as I did.  However, and this is a big however, especially if your listeners are young and/or fidgety, this book has L-O-N-G chapters and rather complex sentences.  Perhaps it’s because it was written way back in the early 1950s when attention spans were longer.  I don’t know.  My girls actually don’t have trouble paying attention to long stories (maybe because I subjected them to my terrible British accent and The Wind in the Willows when they were practically babies ;-) ), but I think it helped a lot that they had already listened to the audiobook of Ginger Pye several, several times quite a few months ago (maybe last year?). 

I tried to read The Moffats for my Reading My Library challenge a while back when I was searching for an E author, but I just couldn’t get into it.  Ginger Pye has made me more willing to give Eleanor Estes another chance, especially since the Moffats make a cameo appearance in Ginger Pye.  I understand that Ginger Pye has a sequel, too–Pinky Pie.  Has anyone read it?  I think my girls and I will definitely have to add this one to our TBR list!

Link your own Read Aloud Thursday posts up below!  :-)

Weekly Wrap-Up::August 30-September 3, 2010

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This week at the House of Hope might aptly be called “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly,” or perhaps “The Thrill of Victory and the Agony of Defeat.”  This was our fifth week of schooling, so I suppose it was bound to happen sooner or later.  Actually, in terms of learning, we had a good week.  It was more the organizational/logistical side of things that went awry.  Let’s address the good stuff first, shall we?  :-)

Bible and Devotions

We continued reading about the prophet Elijah.  He went head-t0-head with the prophets of Baal this week, and then he fled from Queen Jezebel.  We read a couple of devotionals from Leading Little Ones to God and continued learning the verses to the hymn “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  We pretty much have the first three verses down pat; we’re still working on verse four.  Our memorization of Psalm 24 continued, as well; we’re up through verse seven now. 

Reading
Lulu finished section ten and began working on section eleven in OPGTTR this week.  These were her independent read-alouds:

I know she read more than this; I’m pretty sure she finished a book a day during her mandatory ten minutes of quiet reading time prior to rest time, but I didn’t keep up with the titles.  I’ve tentatively put out a copy of a Magic Tree House book, Mummies in the Morning , in hopes that Lulu’s interest in mummies and Egypt (thanks to our history studies!) would give her the incentive to delve into a chapter book on her own.  I’m not pushing it, though–just offering, gently.  I think this is something that can’t be rushed.

Louise completed two lessons in OPGTTR this week:  lessons 34 and 35 (minus the game).  She also enjoyed all of Lulu’s read-alouds!  :-)

Math

Lulu was introduced to writing equations this week in RightStart level B.  She also began keeping her math journal for RightStart, which is something I’m glad is a part of this particular curriculum.  (It’s something that I’ve always wanted to have her do, but not something I usually think of on my own.)  As I mentioned last week, we began using Math Mammoth this week, too.  We’re working in the light blue series, which is arranged topically.  Lulu worked on counting in groups of ten and naming and writing numbers.  I decided to not worry about aligning the curricula, but instead to let Lulu think about and work on the topics as they come.  I like both curricula and how they teach math conceptually (I believe this is the correct terminology), but I’m going to have to rein in my enthusiasm and limit how much I try to do in Math Mammoth, which I’m looking at as our secondary curriculum.  If not, math tends to go on and on.  :-)

History

We had something of a difficult time getting history done this week, for some reason.  I only intended for us to cover one half of chapter four in SOTW 1–the “Making Mummies” portion of “The Old Kingdom of Egypt.”  We finally got around to writing hieroglyphics from last week, but we didn’t finish making our scrolls.  (Note to self:  Buy whatever school materials we need on the weekends; if we don’t have the materials by Monday, we’re not likely to get them through the week!)  We read a couple of supplemental books and began working on our Ancient Egypt history pocket (from History Pockets: Ancient Civilizations, Grades 1-3).I wasn’t sure how the girls would like reading and studying about mummification–it’s pretty gruesome.  In true kid fashion, they liked it.  :-)   Stay tuned to find out if I actually go through with my plan to mummify a chicken! 

Science

Our animals of the week were the giraffe, the camel, and the deer, via Elemental Science Biology for the Grammar Stage.  As usual, we read several supplemental books, and Lulu read aloud a few books related to our animal studies, as well.  We completed our first “experiment” this week (not including the one we did a few weeks ago that didn’t work out).  The idea behind this experiment is to figure out the importance of a camel’s large feet.  We took a large cardboard disc and a small cardboard disc and determined which one was easier to push down into a bowl full of salt (to mimic sand). 


I like to highlight any good books we read for our science studies, and this week, the camels won out.  This book is a fiction title, but it is a fun read.  What’s the Matter, Habibi?, written and illustrated by Betsy Lewin, is the story of a camel, Habibi, who gives rides to children to make a living for her master, who loves her and calls her “my darling.”  One day, Habibi refuses to get up, and her master is unable to figure out why.  It turns out that Habibi yearns to improve her appearance, and she steals her master’s shoes to make it happen.  This one made me laugh! 

We’re really enjoying this approach to science this year!

Language

More First Language Lessons and Writing With Ease.  Lulu finished memorizing “The Caterpillar” several weeks ago, but we finally got a new memory piece in FLL:  “Work.”  We managed to complete three lessons in each of these books this week. 

This is actually where Art should go, but this is also where “the Bad,” which I alluded to above, comes in.  On Thursday, our usual art lesson day, Louise had a doctor’s appointment in the afternoon.  This necessitated that I take Louise and the DLM out to my parents’ house, about fifteen miles in the opposite direction from the doctor’s office, and then get Louise over to the doctor.  I also try to mix it up a little on Thursdays–for all intents and purposes, it’s Friday for us here at home (the girls’ homeschool group meetings will resume next Friday), so I try to add in a little bit of fun.  After all, we’re homeschoolers, and we can do that, right?  Right.  I decided to bake cookies on Thursday, in addition to trying to accomplish most of what we usually do.   Well, we did make the cookies, but it was not a good day.  I do not handle stress well ( :-) ), and I was a near-basket case all day, trying to get lots accomplished but still get out the door in time to make Louise’s appointment.  This is also where “the Ugly” comes in–as in, my attitude and dealings with my girls.  I don’t want to dwell on the bad here, especially since this is a record of our school year, but let’s just say that mama has a lot to learn about patience and letting things go.  :-(  

But like I said, we did bake cookies, and they were good.  (We used this recipe from Alton Brown.)

Chocolate works wonders, doesn’t it?  ;-)

On Friday we had to take the DLM to the photography studio to have his 3 month picture taken, and after lunch out and a few errands, we came home to have rest time.  The girls and I began working on our art lesson before we left this morning, and we finished it after we returned home and had rest-time.  I’ll post what we drew for Sketch Tuesday next week.

The girls have enjoyed listening to The Cowgirl Aunt of Harriet Bean, Caddie Woodlawn, and The Cricket in Times Square in audiobook during rest-time and in other little snatches of time this week.  We’re still reading Ginger Pye as our read-aloud.

I don’t usually mention Louise as much in our weekly report because since she’s not officially school-age yet, I often let her just play when she’s willing.  I try not to push, but as a not-much-younger sibling, she’s all about keeping up with big sister.  Louise did reach a milestone this week, though.  She finished her last toddler/little kid music class and will begin class piano lessons next week!  :-)   At Louise’s little mini-recital, Lulu tickled my mom because she brought in the book she was reading in the van on the way over so she could finish it.  Mom said that this was just like me growing up, and I suspect it was just like Steady Eddie, too.  We’re both bookworms from way back!  :-)

The DLM–well, he just keeps getting cuter and more engaging.  This week he began making those cute little growly noises down in his throat.  We’re all quite taken with him. 

Well, it was a good week, despite my failings.  :-)   I just need to work on the organizational and planning end of things–how much can we realistically do when we have afternoon appointments?  Any ideas or advice?

I don’t want to end this week down in the dumps, so I’m going to end with a clip from one of my favorite t.v. shows.  When we studied giraffes at the beginning of the week, this clip kept playing over and over and over in my mind.   Enjoy!  :-)

(I’m linking this post to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up::August 23-27, 2010

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 Wow! I can’t believe we’ve completed our fourth week of school here at the House of Hope!  While I can’t say we’ve really settled into a comfortable routine (as amy in peru commented on my Day in Our Life post, “. . .babies add variety. . .not even one day the same”), I can say with full assurance that no one here is bored.  :-)   This is how the week went:

Bible and Devotions

We finally made it past King Solomon and into the murkier waters (if that’s possible!)  of life in Israel and Judah under Rehoboam and Jeroboam.  A bonus for me was that I finally managed to get these two straight in my mind!  We quickly moved past these two and into more familiar territory:  the story of Elijah the Prophet.  The girls really enjoy hearing familiar stories again, so this is good.  I had a moment of inspiration last weekend and decided that one week per hymn from Hymns for a Kid’s Heart is simply not long enough.  We doubled back this week and began learning the words to the other verses of “Holy, Holy, Holy.”  Lulu surprised me this week by showing me up in our memorization and recitation of Psalm 24–she had been reading the Psalm I had posted on our bulletin board in the school room and memorizing it on the sly!  :-)   I love that she’s (finally!) excited about hiding God’s Word in her heart, even if it is to show up mommy!  :-)   We’re working on verse five now, so we’re about half way to the end of the Psalm.

Reading

As much as I love to read, I’m actually finding the teaching of reading to be rather ho-hum.  I’m coming to view this as basic training for life–something that is a means to an end, not the end.  Lulu is at the point where she can read just about anything she picks up, but we’re still plodding along through the OPGTTR.  We’re to the point where phonics rules begin to get tricky to me–variable spellings for the long vowel sounds, etc.  She’s doing well with it, though.  These are the books that Lulu read aloud independently this week:

I’m learning that there’s a vast range of skill levels, even among books commonly marked as level two readers.  As you can tell, these books are somewhat self-selected.  What I usually do is pick up a small stack of these readers that appear to be approximately on Lulu’s level when we go to the library and allow her to choose one a day.  Sometimes she picks something out of our reading basket, but she usually chooses a library book for variety.

After last week’s epiphany regarding Louise’s reading skill level, Steady Eddie and I went out last weekend and purchased a new set of readers for Louise.  We purchased Clever Critters: Level 1: Advanced (Now I’m Reading!) by Nora Gaydos.  These readers are colorful, unlike the Bob Books, and the illustrations have a little more kid-appeal.  Louise read the following titles from this series:

  • The Hot Yak
  • The Big Cub
  • The Fox Begs

Yay for Louise!  :-)  

We ended the week on Thursday with a rousing game of Reading Bingo. 

Math

I’m finally convinced, after 2,347 hands of Go to the Dump, that Lulu knows how to partition ten by memory and understanding.  RightStart Math is a perfect fit for Lulu!   After reading this thread, though, I’m sort of antsy to add another program on alternating days.  In fact, that was our original plan this year–to use MEP and RightStart.  I chickened out, though, because I just couldn’t anticipate how our days were going to go since we were adding an infant into the mix.  Now I see that it really wouldn’t be doing more in our day–it would just be adding something to our year.  I’m thinking that I might like to try out Math Mammoth with RightStart.  I reviewed Math Mammoth last year, and I’ve read really great things about it from people who have actually used it.  Since I already own the Blue Series, I thought we’d give it a try.  Stay tuned!

History

We learned about the first writing this week in history.  We didn’t read any supplemental books or do anything outside of the Story of the World Activity Guide.  The girls are still really enjoying the maps.  We did make necklaces with Sumerian cuneiform inscriptions.  The girls really loved this!   We used Sculpey, and even after baking it for about 45 minutes, it never hardened.  I wonder if this is how it’s supposed to be, or if maybe our clay is too old or something.  Hmmm.  Any ideas?

The girls were so excited about their new accessories that they wore them to church Wednesday night.  :-)

I had planned to make scrolls with Egyptian hieroglyphics, but my sister and nephews stopped by yesterday after school.  My older nephew broke his ankle at school yesterday and had just gotten a cast put on it.  Apparently, older cousins and casts are exciting enough to make my girls forget their history art project.  They didn’t mention it the rest of the day, so we’ll probably just put it off until next week.

Science

I feel like science was rather ho-hum this week, too.  I didn’t have a good chance to hunt down all the good resources I know our library must have on zebras, hippos, and foxes, so we didn’t have as many supplemental books to read.  Still, Lulu completed narrations on all three animals and Louise did two, all based on what we read from the Kingfisher Encyclopedia and anything supplemental we read. They also categorized them as to whether they are herbivore, omnivore, or carnivore.  Lulu read a couple of animal books aloud and added them to her science reading log.  Our best supplemental read-aloud of the week was Fox by Kate Banks.  This picture book has sweet illustrations by Georg Hallensleben, but it is a story that contains a lot of factual information about the maturation of  fox kits.  The girls really liked this one. 

Language

There’s not much to note here, other than the fact that a.) Lulu can definitely recite the definition of a noun at this point and b.) she was tickled to be able to tell me more about Alice’s Adventures in  Wonderland than the short pieces I read from Writing With Ease for narration contained.  :-)

Handwriting

Lulu has ditched the workbooks in favor of her copywork, narration, and book lists.  We’ll pull them out if I see that she’s really having trouble with something (like numbers–we worked on those last week), but otherwise, we’ll call it good.  Louise is still occasionally working in her workbook, and at four years old, she still has a ways to go in motor skills to have this mastered. 

Art

Honest confession:  I look forward to our art lessons on Thursday afternoons as much as I look forward to sharing my favorite read-alouds with my girls.  :-)   We’re still in the preparation/warm up phase of Drawing with Children; we haven’t even made it to lesson one proper yet.  There’s something about doing this on Thursday afternoons that I find relaxing and inspiring, and I think the girls do, too.  I don’t know what it is–maybe because Fridays are our errand/library/homeschool group meeting days, so Thursdays are sort of like Fridays to me, so I’m already a little more relaxed.  Anyway, I love doing this!  These were our warm-up exercises from yesterday:

I also had the girls draw a zoo animal for Sketch Tuesday at Harmony Art Mom, but I’ll wait until Tuesday to post those. 

I’m really enjoying our lifestyle.  Sure, I get stressed out sometimes, but overall, I feel like I’ve been given grace to handle this better than I ever could in my own impatient, perfectionistic flesh.  (Not that I’m perfect by any means–far from it!)  I love that the girls get to spend their days with me and the DLM.  I love that they listen to excellent literature for a couple of hours every day.  (This week they finally got tired of Heidi in audio and picked up The Cricket in Times Square.  Lulu just announced last night that the cricket in the story played “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God,” which is one of the hymns we’ve been working on!  :-)   We are still enjoying Ginger Pye as our chapter book read aloud.)  Yesterday when we got the phone call that my nephew had broken his ankle, we were able to stop immediately and pray for him.  Then, Louise immediately made him a get well card.  I love that because we’re together, the girls get to learn how to respond to such crises.  I still have my moments of homeschool angst, but I’m really happy with where we are right now as a family.  

Thank you, Lord!

(For more Week Wrap-Up posts, head over to Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.)

Weekly Wrap-Up X 2: August 9-13 and August 16-20

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I tried and tried to find or make time to post a wrap-up post last week, but it just didn’t happen.  We had a tragic death in my family last week–my uncle was killed in a motorcycle accident.  We spent the end of last week attending his funeral and spending time with the family.  The weekend went by in a blur, and the new week was upon us almost before I knew it.  We’re schooling Monday through Thursday now until our group meetings start next month.  I have decided that if I am going to keep up these weekly wrap-up posts (and I really want to!), I’m going to have to hit the high points of the week instead of giving a play-by-play.  This is what I’ve decided to focus on:

  • anything that we produce that is interesting visually since much of our work is oral and/or rather boring visually (i.e. narration pages produced over and over; handwriting work; etc.)
  • the books we read, both together and alone (this one shouldn’t come as a surprise!)
  • any growth I see in my girls (and the DLM, too!)
  • anything unusual we do that contributes to or illustrates our learning

This Weekly Wrap-Up post will be a mish-mash of weeks and a post that I started last week and didn’t finish and my new resolve of “less is more” (which is so hard for me, as regular readers here already know ;-) ).  Anyway, the goals above are ones I aspire to, not necessarily ones I’ve attained.  :-)   Okay, on to our weeks-in-review!

 Remember the end of our first week when I said that things went sooooooooooo smoothly?  Well, the honeymoon’s over.  :-)   All things considered, we have had a good couple of weeks, but that nice little tidy schedule that worked most of the first week simply isn’t happening anymore, mostly due to a shift in the DLM’s sleeping schedule (and I use that term loosely!).    It was bound to happen, though, right?  I have a few theories on how I might better order our day that I’ll share at the end of this post, and I’m ALWAYS open to suggestions from you veteran homeschoolers out there!

First, though, the good stuff–what we accomplished!

Bible and Devotions

We continued to read in our Children’s Bible in 365 Stories, and this week it was all about Solomon and his successors.  The girls were quite fascinated by the most famous story that showcases Solomon’s God-given wisdom.  :-)   We learned about the hymns “A Mighty Fortress Is Our God” and “This Is My Father’s World”.  We also continued with Leading Little Ones to God, although at this point the girls much prefer spending time with the hymns.  Much of what we’ve read so far in Leading Little Ones has been somewhat repetitive of what we’ve already done, but for now we’re continuing with it because I like how it discusses theological issues systematically.  We managed to get in a couple of days (I think–I forgot to mark it down!) of JBQ practice, too.  This past week we began memorizing Psalm 24, and in answer to my own query about a good system for keeping up with and reviewing our memory passages, I think I might give Simply Charlotte Mason’s Scripture Memory System a try.  Does anyone out there use this?  Do you like it?

Reading

Lulu finished up with the review lessons I intended for her to work on from OPGTTR this week and moved on to new material.  Right now I’m planning for Thursdays to be a free reading day on which she simply reads aloud instead of doing another phonics lesson.  (Lulu actually reads aloud to me every day, but I hope to increase the amount she reads, at least on Thursdays.)  These are the books Lulu read aloud these two weeks:

We also played a rousing game of W-I-N-G-O Set 3: Blends and Digraphs on both Thursdays.  (Those are Wingo tiles pictured above.)  Louise hasn’t officially learned about blends and digraphs yet (‘though what she hasn’t learned has yet to stop her. . . ), so she’s mostly along for the ride here. I had an epiphany this week, though, in teaching this girl to read. I am a “cover ALL the bases” kind of person, and so I had determined that it would be best to start all over in the Ordinary Parent’s Guide to Teaching Reading, despite the fact that Louise was well into reading CVC words last year, simply because I felt like last year I wasn’t consistent enough in my attention to her phonics lessons.  Well, on Thursday of last week, Louise surprised me by reading Rub-a-Dub from Bob Books Set 2-Advancing Beginners.  I was already beginning to feel like we were spinning our wheels by going back over all the phonemes, etc. (not to mention the fact that Louise was extremely antsy bored doing all of this!), but this absolutely confirmed it and convinced me to move ahead some twenty-five lessons in the book.  Louise also read Puppy Mudge Has a Snack aloud to us.  This is a pre-reader type of book, and it contains quite a few sight words.  This is not my preferred method of reading instruction and practice, but I thought reading a book like her big sister might boost this middle child’s confidence.  :-)   I also pulled out the magnetic letters and my old cookie sheet for Louise to practice her word-making skills.  It was a good week for reading at the House of Hope!

Math

We’re plucking right along in RightStart Math level B, and much of what we’ve done up until this week has been review.  Lulu is all about math!  She really enjoys thinking mathematically, and for this I am thankful.  I made up a Mommy Store this week so she could practice counting money, and she and Louise both got a big kick out of this.  (Louise declared it to be “hundreds of fun,” and then she amended that to be “105 cents of fun.”  ;-) )RightStart has been a great fit for her, and although I admit that I went back to it this year with a little trepidation (because of the teacher-intensive nature of it), I think this week I began to see the fruit of all those many, many hands of Go to the Dump we have played.  Lulu has pretty much mastered her math addition facts up to 10.  Yay! 

History

Story of the World volume 1 continues to be a hit around here.  Last week we learned about the earliest people and their nomadic ways and how they came to be farmers in the Fertile Crescent.  Lulu was obviously impressed by this; she announced after learning about the Fertile Crescent, “Maybe I’ll go there on my honeymoon!”  :-)   The girls got to do a little painting at the end of last week when they made their own cave paintings on crumpled up paper sacks. 

This week we’ve learned about the unification of Egypt under King Narmer and how the Nile River floods, creating a fertile delta.  The girls also heard a story from Egyptian mythology.  I had a little bit of hesitation about sharing this story with the girls, mainly because I don’t particularly like learning about mythology myself.  However, after discussing the issue with Steady Eddie (and after reading this post on Susan Wise Bauer’s education blog) we decided go ahead with it. 

Science

Here’s a confession:  I love science.  My love affair with science goes back to high school where I had two fabulous science teachers who really made it fun and interesting.  (How I came to study English and history is still something of a mystery to me.  ;-) )   Studying animal habitats with my girls last week was so much fun.  We read a lot of books, many of which were run-of-the-mill series nonfiction titles that most libraries have in abundance.  However, there are a couple that we really enjoyed on the topic which I think added a lot to our study.  The first one is an Usborne title that covers at least two of the habitats we discussed (based on our science curriculum, Biology for the Grammar Stage).  The Usborne Book of Wild Places:  Moutains, Jungles and Deserts contains lots of illustrations and snippets of information.  Although this is actually not my favorite lay-out for a book, I’ve come to appreciate this style more after discussing somewhat complex topics with my young children.

Another title that we really enjoyed last week is One Small Place in a Tree by Barbara Brenner.  We began the week by talking about forests (both deciduous and boreal, a word I had not encountered before last week), so this little story was a good introduction to the complexity of nature and how just “one small place in a tree” can be home to so many creatures.  (We read a similar title by the same author some time ago and really enjoyed it, too.)


I just have to mention one more title that relates to habitats.  The Water Hole by Graeme Base is a beautiful book that is wonderful and useful in so many different ways.  It’s the story of a water hole that is shrinking (and thus negatively affecting the animals it “serves”), so it gets across the idea of conservation, first and foremost.  However, in addition to that, this is a counting book for the numbers 1 to 10; it’s a look-and-find book, with very visually complex and interesting illustrations; and it’s a book about habitats, since each two-page spread highlights a different continent, country, or habitat.  Highly Recommended!


This week we began learning about mammals and focused primarily on lions, cheetahs, and elephants.  We read quite a few good titles to go along with this study.  By far the best title we read is Grandma Elephant’s In Charge by Martin Jenkins.  This picture book is nonfiction, but it’s written as a story, so it has great kid-appeal.  The main idea in this story is that the female elephants live together in a herd, and the most important female is the “grandma” of the herd.  Ivan Bates‘ illustrations are realistic but still playful (where appropriate).  I give this one a Highly Recommended, also!

We read all of these books in addition to our science spine, The Kingfisher First Encyclopedia of Animals .  Lulu also read an appropriate science book every day.  I wanted to mention one series of books that we’ve found particularly good, both for my reading aloud to the girls and for Lulu to read–Pebble Plus books .

The girls completed narration exercises about each of the animals we studied, and they also placed each one of these animals in the correct category–omnivore, herbivore, or carnivore.  We did a science demonstration on Wednesday, but it didn’t work out very well, so that’s all I’ll say about it.  ;-)

Language

We plugged along in Writing With Ease and First Language Lessons.  We even did our first picture study/narration in FLL!

Handwriting

As much as I want Lulu to finish her handwriting book, it’s just hard for me to make her do it when I’m requiring her to keep a book log for both the books she reads aloud for reading and for science.  Plus, she does copywork for WWE.  Will someone please tell me just to let it go?  :-)   Louise, on the other hand, did several pages in her handwriting book this week and enjoyed every minute of it. 

Art


After discovering that Barb from Harmony Art Mom and Handbook of Nature Study has divided up the lessons in Drawing with Children into a manageable form (and adapted them for nature study, too), I decided to take the plunge this week and officially call Thursday afternoons our art lesson time.  This is one study I really hope to gain something from.  This week we worked on getting accustomed to the imperfect-ness of artwork and letting that go, as well as learning how to relax and acquaint ourselves with our new markers.   I’m excited about the prospect of all of us (me included!) learning how to draw! 


During rest time, the Lulu read several books and they listened to the unabridged versions of  Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Heidi in audiobook format.  We finished our last read-aloud chapter book, Betsy-Tacy and Tib, and started on Ginger Pye. 

All things considered, we’ve had a fantastic two weeks.  I think I’m enjoying it more than the girls!  That’s not to say it’s without its difficult moments, though.  My biggest challenge is, as always, how to balance it all.  The DLM threw a monkey wrench into my nice little schedule by deciding to not always take a nice, long nap in the mornings.  I know that one way to handle this is to try to keep him awake the last time he wakes up to eat (which is anywhere from 4-ish to 6-ish each morning), but most times (especially when it’s still dark outside), I’m just too sleepy.  I am working toward it, though.  If I do that, he’s awake through breakfast and then I get him back to sleep while the girls and I share our Bible story and devotion.  He then usually sleeps long enough for us to get most of our work done.  He’s quite the charmer now, though, with lots of grins and laughing out loud, so it’s hard for the girls (and me!) to focus when he’s awake.  :-)  

If you’ve read this far, thank you.  This is probably the longest post I’ve ever written, and I HOPE I can make it more manageable next week.  I’m linking this up to the Weekly Wrap-Up at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Kids’ Picks–Alexander McCall Smith selections

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A few weeks ago, we returned to our favorite library after an absence of about six weeks following the birth of the DLM.  We are blessed to live in an area which has several small towns close to each other, and each town has its own library.  We opted to visit the library closest to our home in the weeks following the DLM’s birth, and we enjoyed its summer reading program tremendously, but we were ready to go back to the larger library.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn that this library had added several juvenile audiobooks to its collection, and while my girls are too young to listen to most of the collection, there were several new titles that they burned right through in record time.  They LOVED them!

I picked up all the new-to-us titles by Alexander McCall Smith because the girls had already given his Akimbo stories their stamp of approval.  (Read my thoughts here.)  Of the books the girls have listened to, The Five Lost Aunts of Harriet Bean has been their favorite.  I only listened to enough of this story in passing to know that McCall Smith’s subtle sense of humor and talent for word play shine in this story.   Since I haven’t listened to or read the whole book, I can’t provide a summary, so here’s a summary, borrowed from Amazon and originally from School Library Journal:

Grade 2-4–An offhand comment from her father sets nine-year-old Harriet Bean on the path of finding the five aunts whom she has never known. This seems like the perfect start of a juicy family mystery but it never quite turns into one. When given the full story of her father’s loss of his five older sisters and a clue to the whereabouts of one of them, Harriet embarks on a hasty journey of collection. Useful coincidences make the women ridiculously easy to locate; it also helps that the final two are mind readers and come seeking her. The real mystery is how the father can possibly be absentminded enough to misplace five sisters. All of them are likable characters with interesting personality quirks and gadgets: strong-woman Veronica uses pedal power to drive her circus trailer from city to city, and twin detectives Thessalonika and Japonica are masters of disguise with convincing costumes. It is these two who give Harriet the chance to solve a mystery in the sequel, which takes place at a racetrack’s stables. Masquerading as a jockey, Harriet is confronted with a villain who uses glue to stick a horse’s feet to the floor so that he won’t run well the next day. It’s contrived stuff such as this that takes most of the charm out of this easy chapter-book series.–Kathleen Meulen, Blakely Elementary School, Bainbridge Island

 

Hmmm.  Not exactly a glowing recommendation, but here it is, straight from my girls.  I asked them, “Why do you like Harriet Bean so much?”  Their answers:

Lulu:  I like when her two aunts went and sprawled on her father, Harold.  It’s a mystery. 

Louise:  It has disguises in it, and I love to dress up in disguises. 

There you have it, folks.  If you like a mystery in which people sprawl and wear disguises, this one is for you!  :-)

The girls have also enjoyed a couple of Max and Maddy stories by Alexander McCall Smith, also in audiobook format.  They have listened to Max & Maddy and the Chocolate Money Mystery (I listened to and enjoyed most of this one) and Max & Maddy and the Bursting Balloons Mystery.  I know they listened to the first one two or three times before we returned it to the library, and if that isn’t a glowing recommendation, I don’t know what is. 

It’s always interesting to me to read what children choose versus what we choose for them.  While I don’t like twaddle, I try to walk the line between steering them toward good literature and allowing them a little intellectual freedom (if reading Barbie books can be called that ;-) ).  I don’t feel like I’m sacrificing anything, though, when the girls choose books by Alexander McCall Smith. 

For more Kids’ Picks, visit 5 Minutes for Books!

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

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The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo might just be one of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read.  Actually, I haven’t read it–I’ve listened to it being read by Judith Ivey in a Listening Library audiobook production.  (The link on the right below is to the audiobook.)  Because I get a whole lot more out of a story if I read it myself (‘though I do enjoy audiobooks), I’m afraid I won’t do this lovely, lovely story justice in this review.  However, I am so excited about it that I just have to share it, even before I locate a copy of it to read it myself. 

I’m no stranger to Kate DiCamillo’s works–to date I’ve read Because of Winn Dixie, Tiger Rising, and The Tale of Despereaux, and as a family we’ve listened to a few of the Mercy Watson tales (which I reviewed here).  Before listening to Edward Tulane, Tiger Rising was my favorite of DiCamillo‘s works.  I think she is an amazingly talented author who can distill the big issues of life–love, loss, empathy, hope–into stories that even young children can understand.  Did I mention that I actually checked Edward Tulane out for my girls?  (Well, truthfully, I had every intention of listening to it myself–how could I resist after reading this review at Library Hospital?) Lulu and Louise have listened to this audiobook twice, and they would’ve listened to it a third time if I hadn’t positively insisted that they go play instead of hanging out with me in the kitchen while I listened to the story and cleaned out the freezer.  ;-)

This is a summary of the book, borrowed from the author’s website:

Once, in a house on Egypt Street, there lived a china rabbit named Edward Tulane. The rabbit was very pleased with himself, and for good reason: he was owned by a girl named Abilene, who treated him with the utmost care and adored him completely. And then, one day, he was lost.

Kate DiCamillo takes us on an extraordinary journey, from the depths of the ocean to the net of a fisherman, from the top of a garbage heap to the fireside of a hobos camp, from the bedside of an ailing child to the bustling streets of Memphis. And along the way, we are shown a true miracle: even a heart of the most breakable kind can learn to love, to lose, and to love again.


I’m not sure just how DiCamillo can write a story about a selfish, self-absorbed china rabbit and make it so touching that by the end of the story, I’m crying, but she did it with this one.  This story is very slightly reminiscent The Velveteen Rabbit, but I’ve never read a version of The Velveteen Rabbit with half as much heart as this story.  I think The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane might even be considered allegorical at times, and I’m pretty certain that I could wring some Christian symbolism out of it if I were asked to do so, but I won’t.  What I will say is that this book is all about hope–how that even the most hardened of hearts can be changed through the miracle of giving love to another.  It’s in the giving, not the receiving, that the miracle takes place. 

If you only read one kid’s book this year, make it The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane.  Highly, highly, highly recommended. 

(If I ever get my hands on a copy of this story, I can almost guarantee you that I’ll come back and post some quotes.  It’s a beautiful story and quotable, to boot.)

Read Aloud Thursday–Bible Story Edition

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I’ve had this post chasing around my brain for a while–I wanted to share what we’ve used for most of Lulu’s kindergarten year for our devotion and Bible time. Given the week we’ve had, I thought today would be a good day to share this as a Read Aloud Thursday post since a nice little portion of our read-aloud time each day consists of reading from these books.


I’ve mentioned before how much we love The Jesus Storybook Bible.  I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve read it all the way through.  The girls even got the deluxe edition, complete with audiobook CDs, for Christmas.  We’ve also given this particular storybook as gifts several times.  We love it!  However, this particular volume hits primarily the well-known Bible stories and does so in a very creative, paraphrased, storybookish format. By this point in their young lives, my girls can recount most major Bible stories as well as I can.  Some time back around Christmas, I began to look for a book that goes more in depth and stays more textually true to the Bible. 

I found The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories by Mary Batchelor.   As the title indicates, this collection breaks the Bible up into 365 stories.  Each story is about a page long, and most stories are accompanied by detailed (and recognizable, at least to me) illustrations by John Haysom.   My favorite thing about this book is that it goes through the Bible and covers more territory than most children’s Bible story books I’ve seen.  We just finished reading through the section from the book of Judges, and my girls met Ehud, Deborah, Gideon, and Jephthah, not just Samson.  :-)  Each morning, I would usually follow up the story by asking the appropriate questions from our church’s Bible quiz questions since Lulu will be eligible to participate next year.  This book gives some details, but usually not more than I am comfortable with sharing.  However, given the nature of some stories (particularly Old Testament ones), I would recommend at least skimming the stories before reading them aloud so that you can see if anything needs to be censored/edited/explained your children’s level of understanding.  I tend not to do that and either have to explain a lot or edit on the fly.  ;-)

At night we’ve been reading through Tomie dePaola’s Book of Bible Stories.  This is simply a collection of stories from the NIV Bible, and yes, it hits only the usual stories.  I like it, though, because it is in a recognizable, familiar translation but still has big, child-friendly illustrations.  (Tell me–who doesn’t love Tomie dePaola’s illustrations?)  Believe it or not, I think I picked up both this book and The Children’s Bible in 365 Stories at a used book store!  Score!  :-)   The biggest triumph of all for us in using this book has been that Lulu has taken to reading aloud from it at night as a part of our bedtime routine.  I’m fairly certain that if I had handed her a leather-bound NIV Bible, she would’ve balked (small, crammed together print is still an issue for her), but she can read this!  We still haven’t figured out if it’s because she’s very familiar with this translation that she does so well with even the “big” words, but whatever it is, we’ll take it!  :-)

In addition to these Bible story books (and a few others, actually), we’ve used Little Visits with Jesus (which I wrote about here), but honestly, I think we’ve just about outgrown this particular resource.  Most of the children in the stories seem younger than my girls, so I’m looking forward to starting our next devotional book in the new school year.  I hope to blog about what we’re using next year in a future blog post. 

Well, that sums up our Bible instruction here at the House of Hope (with the notable absence of our memory work, which I’ve been lax with lately).  This is very important to us, and it is actually something that anchors our read-aloud time on most days, school days or not.  (Well, that is until something like the arrival of a DLM upsets things for a bit.)

What has your family been enjoying lately?  Leave a link to your blog post or simply leave a comment and share with us!

Have a fantastic Read Aloud Thursday!

Read Aloud Thursday–The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

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I am preparing this post on Tuesday evening because I fully expect by Read Aloud Thursday to be the proud mother of a baby boy, or at least to be awfully close to it. If my posting is spotty over the next few days, you can guess why. :-) I’ll try to keep you posted when I can.

I didn’t know when I started this particular read-aloud that it would take us a while to get through it since I had never read it myself.  The Secret Garden is a dense book, full of description, but my girls did suprisingly well with it.  By the end of the story, Louise was pretty antsy (we read three chapters in a row in order to finish it on Tuesday before the blessed chaos of a new baby descends upon the House of Hope), but I think even she, in all her 4 1/2 year old wiggliness, really enjoyed it.  Actually, I know she did–witness this conversation, held some time last week:

Louise:  “I wish this story were real.”

Me:  “Why?” 

Louise:  “Because I love it.” 

I can’t argue with that.  :-)

This is a perfectly lovely story–the writing fairly sings at times.  Sometimes I tire of description myself, but somehow Burnett managed to make all the description in this story significant.  My only reservation with this story is the emphasis on Magic (capitalized, no less) as the source of what “cures” Colin.  I was fairly uncomfortable with the whole idea, and honestly, I censored the book (just a tiny bit) so as to avoid some of the more problematic aspects of it.  I don’t mind magical stories in general too much usually, but something about the way this one is written bothered me just a bit.  I think it was the idea presented toward the end of the story–that faith and Magic are actually one and the same thing, only we know them by different names.   Colin even says so:

“Perhaps they are both the same thing.  How can we know the exact name of everything?” (285)

Even though I had not read this book before (‘though I had watched the movie ;-) ), I already knew about this bit of controversy thanks to Janet’s post from last month.  I think I’d like to revisit this story when my girls are older and really talk about it. 

Actually, there is one more problematic area concerning this novel for me:  the Yorkshire accent/diction!  Oh my.  I’m sure I butchered it.  I really wanted my girls to hear what it sounds like, and I even tooled around the ‘net for an example for us to listen to, but in the end we made do with this audiobook from the library.  Since the girls listened to almost the entire story in audio format, I suppose that negates my censoring of the novel, but at least they got to hear what has to be closer to a Yorkshire accent than this Southern girl can manage. 

Our copy of this novel (which is the image above) includes gorgeous color illustrations by Tasha Tudor (whom I’ve written about here).  My girls always look forward to the illustrations in chapter books, and these are particularly noteworthy. 

I’m not sure which chapter book we’ll tackle next.  I think I’ll choose something a little shorter since it took us a while to get through this one.  Besides, we’ll be a little busy over the next few weeks.  ;-)

What about your family?  What have you been enjoying together?  Leave a link to your blog post detailing your read-alouds, or simply leave a comment.  My response time might be a little slow this week, but I promise to do my best to come back and read every post!  :-)

Have a beautiful Read Aloud Thursday!

Read Aloud Thursday

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Welcome to the first official Read Aloud Thursday  at my new place!  I’m so glad you found Read Aloud Thursday and I hope you’ll come back each week for this great opportunity to share what you’ve been reading together as a family.  All of the archived Read Aloud Thursdays are here at my new address, and I’m looking forward to many, many more Read Aloud Thursdays with all of you!

Here’s how it works:  each Thursday, I post a little sampling of what we’ve been enjoying together here at the House of Hope.  Sometimes it’s themed; sometimes it’s a random sampling of good picture books we’ve borrowed from the library; sometimes it’s the latest chapter book we’ve finished.  I provide a MckLinky list, and you simply leave a link to your blog entry about your own read-aloud(s).  Don’t have a blog?  That’s okay, too.  Just leave a comment giving us the details! I even have a Read Aloud Thursday button or banner I’d love for you to use on your blog! 

Okay, now on to the real business at hand!  I’ve been saving these for several weeks, and I’m excited to finally share them!

365 Penguins is a large-format picture book by Jean-Luc Fromental that is the hilarious story of a family that receives, over the course of a year, 365 penguins from some anonymous benefactor.  All of the problems and craziness that could possibly follow the arrival of so many penguins ensues, and the family does all sorts of mathematical calculations to keep track of their new charges.  Joelle Jolivet‘s illustrations are large, graphic, and eye-catching.  As is obvious from the cover of the book, the primary colors used are black, white, and orange, with a little bit of blue thrown in for fun.  Reading this book is a math lesson in itself.  This is one I’d love to own a copy of to pull out and re-read from time to time.  Highly Recommended!

Of course, we couldn’t help but think of Mr. Popper’s Penguins while reading 365 Penguins.  The similarities are just too great.  I’ve yet to actually read Mr. Popper’s Penguins to my children, but we have listened to the audiobook multiple times.  (I wrote about it here.)  In fact, after reading 365 Penguins, we were inspired to check out Mr. Popper’s Penguins in audio yet again.  I hardly see how Mr. Popper could be avoided after reading 365 Penguins, really.  And who would want to avoid Mr. Popper’s Penguins, anyway?  It truly is one of the most delightful children’s books I’ve read, and my girls love it as much as I do.  This one gets another Highly Recommended!

Please share what you’ve been reading together as a family by leaving a blog link to the actual blog post below, or just leave a comment.

Have a terrific Read Aloud Thursday!

Children's Bible Hour::Seasons of Faith

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As a member of TOS HomeschoolCrew, I have been blessed with the opportunity to review a great resource from Children’s Bible Hour Ministries.  The Seasons of Faith illustrated book series is a series of books based on Children’s Bible Hour radio scripts.  According to the CBH website, “[T]hese stories teach core truths of the Bible so that kids can easily apply them to their lives. Each book focuses on a season of faith-developing topics.”  The books are paperback and include a “read along CD” narrated by “Uncle” Charlie.  (Regular readers here know how much we love audiobooks here at the House of Hope, so these were very welcome!)  The stories illustrate Biblical principles and are kid-friendly.  So far, my girls and I have listened to Braving the Storm, which is the story of a young boy whose family has been dealt a series of difficult blows.  His grandfather helps him come to understand how such difficult times are the times to grow down deep roots in Christ.  I have also listened to Seventy Times Seven, which is the story of a boy who learns what it means to forgive as Christ has forgiven us.  Both stories are very practical and realistic in that they are about events that could really happen (and often do) in the lives of children.  Each story ends with the plan of salvation that is presented similarly to the way it is presented on the website.  These stories are very evangelistic or discipleship-oriented.  While I would not categorize these as fine literature, they do remind me of something I would’ve watched or listened to as a child in children’s church or youth camp.  I am more than happy to add them to our audiobook collection.  At $10 per title, these book-and-CD sets are comparable in price to any other that you would purchase. 

Be sure to visit the CBH website for a host of resources, including a video of the making of the Seasons of Faith series!

Visit the TOS Homeswchool Crew blog to read more reviews of this product.

This product was sent to me free of charge for review purposes.