Picture Book Highlights
We've been reading and re-reading the All About Alfie collection by Shirley Hughes lately. Sweet, simple little stories about a preschool-age boy named Alfie. I like these because they are very true to life (ie, things that could actually happen) and show Alfie making good choices, but not at all in a way that is saccharin or preachy. I'd put this collection on my top 5 list for preschoolers.
Michelle's Reading (Age 7)
Working her way through another Boxcar Children volume, when she isn't peeking into the books I have stashed away for later or reading ahead in books we are using for school....
Featured School Book
Michelle has been very fascinated by The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History. I'm not a big fan of Usborne books as 'spine' books for school..they aren't what Charlotte Mason would define as 'living books'. But I like keeping this one around as a reference resource. Michelle loves flipping through and studying all the pictures in her spare time. Most of the books we actually read from for history in school don't have pictures, so I like to be able to refer to the illustrated spreads for the time periods we are reading about. Having some kind of visual point of reference has really made our history readings come alive.
Bedtime Read-Aloud
We recently finished reading A Little Princess, which I hadn't read since I was a girl. I kept wanting to flip ahead to find out what was going to happen, always a good sign. Unfortunately, reading off the Kindle makes this tricky.... Our new read-aloud is George MacDonald's The Light Princess. Hmm, what's with the princess theme?
On Mama's Nightstand
Too many things, as usual, as evidenced by the sidebar. My top three recent reads:
- SCM's new book, Mathematics: An Instrument for Living Teaching. Very interesting, very practical look at how math was handled in Charlotte Mason's schools. I've been rethinking how we are doing math anyhow, so this was timely and helpful for me. (And if this topic interests you too, go check out Math Week over at Afterthoughts!)
- The Little Duke by Charlotte Yonge...historical fiction about the childhood of Richard, Duke of Normandy in the 900's. I'm prereading this as it is one of the selections we'll use for AO Year 2, but I am finding it extremely interesting for myself too. I love that I can learn and be enriched by the very same school books that I read to my young children.
- Grace for the Good Girl by Emily Freeman. Yes, I was (and if I'm honest, still am) the stereotypical 'good Christian girl' when I was in school. And I've always struggled with whether or not anything I do is really good enough. And ever since reading Jerry Bridges' book The Discipline of Grace last year, I've been thinking a lot about what difference God's grace makes in my life personally, and that of my family by extension. This book is speaking to all of these issues.
What have you been reading chez nous? I always love to glean new ideas...feel free to drop me a comment!
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