Family Reading #9

 

Picture Book Highlights

Jan Brett’s Honey, Honey, Lion has been frequently coming through the rotation (fantastic book for sound effects, as well as Jan Brett’s beautifully detailed artwork). Elizabeth has also discovered my pile of Golden Books (my pile, as in they were mine when I was little girl), and has especially enjoyed The Poky Little Puppy.   (Michelle has enjoyed the Mother Goose Rhymes book, and has been copying, illustrating, and singing them…especially “Georgie Porgie who kissed the girls and made them cry”.  Not sure what I should think about that!!)

 

Michelle’s Reading (Age 7-1/2)

In the last 2 weeks, she has read through 4 of the books in the Betsy series by Carolyn Haywood, B is for Betsy, Betsy at the Circus, Betsy’s Little Star, and Snowbound with Betsy.  These were favorites of mine as a child, and favorites of my mother’s before me.  Yes, the third generation in our family to enjoy these sweet stories.  I’d say they have a similar reading level to The Boxcar Children books.  Now she's reading Little House in the Big Woods. 

 

Featured School Book

Still loving AO Year 1.  This week we read our first selection from Parables from Nature.  Actually we listened to the audio version while following along, since I had laryngitis last week (fun, huh?)  This is one of the more challenging reading selections and I had intended to break the reading into two parts.  But she insisted we keep going until the end, and she narrated well.   We tried to read a bit of this book last year and it was still too challenging for her to really get into.  It’s exciting to see progress like this!  We have this audio version which was well done and enjoyable to listen to…even though I’ve recovered from laryngitis, I think we’ll continue to use it just to mix things up a bit.

 

Bedtime Reading

We’re reading The Runaway’s Revenge, part of the Trailblazer series by Dave and Neta Jackson.  This volume is historical fiction about John Newton.  When Michelle was dithering over her choice for our next read-aloud, I mentioned to her this was a story about the man who wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”.   Her response:  “Well if it’s about the guy who wrote ‘Amazing Grace’, then I want to read THAT!”   We’re enjoying it. 

 

On Mama’s Nightstand

Too much, as usual. Notable books finished fairly recently: The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert and At the Foot of the Snows.  Currently in Progress: you already know that I’m participating in the 20 Principles Study over on the AO Forum – this consists of a reading assignment every other week from Charlotte Mason’s Volume 6 A Philosophy of Education, For the Children’s Sake, and several other supporting readings from other CM Volumes or the CM blogosphere.  This will be ongoing for the rest of the year.   Really, really good stuff (follow along with some of my thoughts here).   I’m also in a book discussion group over there reading The Scarlet Pimpernel – let’s just say that I am having to exercise a lot of restraint not to read ahead of our group’s schedule (we won’t finish the book until July!).  So many twists and turns and intrigues.   When I need something in between reading assignments, I am dipping into Les Miserables (novel in English), Une Famille aux Petits Oignons (novel in French), or Family Vocation (nonfiction).