August and September Reads

Popping in to give a quick reading update and bloggy hello! I have girls slaving away on math and geography, another is downstairs having a piano lesson, and the boy is getting some quiet tv time in my bedroom so I have a few precious moments here for an update. Our school work this year has ramped up considerably with the additions of a few things to our plate and that leaves little time for blogging ... or much non-school related reading for that matter.

For August, I did pretty well and then slowly tapered off as our work load increased as evidenced below:

• Sophie Quire and the Last Storyguard by Jonathan Auxier is one that I enjoyed - a fun junior lit adventure. Carrie did a great job reviewing it on her blog if you want more of a review that I have time to give here. It's the sequel to Peter Nimble and His Fantastic Eyes which I read in June 2014. This is much the same sort of tale if you've read that one. Jonathan Auxier also wrote The Night Gardener which is deliciously creepy in all the right sorts of ways if you are 10-12ish (or older!) and wanting something a little fun to read for October.
• The BFG by Roald Dahl (read-aloud). We had high hopes of seeing this one in the theater but we didn't get it read in time (though I would have waived that) and we spent our summer movie money on Finding Dory. (No regrets.) We can still look forward to watching this when it releases on iTunes later this year. The kids loved this one ... I found it hard to read aloud because of the BFG's unusual manner of speech. I might have enjoyed it more as an audio book! :)
• Harry Potter and the Cursed Child by JK Rowling, etc. Who didn't read this this summer? I didn't purchase it but waited to get it through the library. Definitely a different read from the regular HP novels, however, it was very interesting to read about the children of some of our favorite characters and the situation in which they found themselves. I'm glad I didn't spend the money on purchasing it, but it was worth getting on the hold list at the library.
• Pretense by Lori Wick. I can't tell you why I picked this one off my shelf, unless it was just a nostalgic feeling for a book that I haven't read in about 10 years. This was a Christian fiction favorite from a long time ago and while this genre isn't something that I read much of anymore, this book stood the test of time, I enjoyed the re-read. (And the fact that it was something familiar that I could read as we started school and I had to keep putting down!)
• Carry On, Mr. Bowditch by Jean Latham. This is a classic that I read along (but not aloud) with my oldest who is in Classical Conversations Challenge A program this year. Oh my goodness, is this a good book! The story of Nathanial Bowditch who dreamed of a life of academia and the study of mathematics, but was forced to spend nine years of his childhood and early youth in apprenticeship. His determination and love of learning was so inspiring. I don't know that this would make a great read-aloud with a young audience because there is a lot of nautical terminology in the book that might make it cumbersome, but it's definitely a book that should not be missed!

Ah, September. Lots of read alouds going on and we finished a couple of big ones!

• Tumtum and Nutmeg: Adventures Beyond Nutmouse Hall by Emily Bearn. Our first official back-to-school read aloud and one that the boy had not been through yet. Delightful as always. I've talked about T&N at great length before. (I really shouldn't go back and reread early reviews ... wow).
• The Burgess Animal Book for Children by Thornton Burgess. This was one of our looped read-alouds that we worked through all last year and we finished it a couple weeks into this year. We all loved this sweet book full of animal information as told from the perspective of Mother Nature and her school of small woodland animals. We've decided that an animal story is a must in our rotation and we've gone one queued up to fill this hole. More on that later!
• The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis. I've read this book so many times, so this was just a quick reread for me before N1 has to write a paper on it for Challenge A. I actually had to purchase a new copy of the book - when I picked it up to reread it, I discovered that it was missing the first few pages. My childhood series has gotten a lot of love over the years!

And that's my list for the last two months.

Our current read-aloud is Roger Lancelyn Green's King Arthur and His Knights of the Round Table. It took us a few chapters to get into the language and flow of this story, but we are a little over half way through and are enjoying the adventures of the knights. I'm hoping that we will finish this in the next couple of weeks - we have the newest adventure in the Green Ember series (Ember Falls) sitting here on my desk staring at us and I can't wait to pick that one up!

Series books for a Voracious Girl Reader

A friend recently stopped me and asked me for some book suggestions for her daughter who is a voracious reader. This girl is somewhere between my two N's ages and needed some ideas of new series and authors to try and boy, did my eyes light up when she asked me for some ideas. I just adore giving book suggestions to folks ... I gives me an excuse to keep justifying my reading of junior and young adult literature! : )

Anyway, I decided to cut and paste the list to my blog so that if asked the question again, I can point someone to the list without having to rethink and type it out again. So, without further ado, my list of recommended series for girls, aged 10-12, who love to read:

The Mysterious BenedictSociety – a trilogy with nice thick books + a 4^th book which is a prequel.

*** Trenton Lee Stewart has a new book coming out this fall. Enabler alert!!!! ****

The Incorrigible Children ofAshton Place – there are five books in this series and she has one more to go, as yet unpublished

The Penderwicks – four books in this five book series have been published.

The Chronicles of Prydian – these fantasy books remind me so much of The Lord of the Rings, but in a much younger, scaled back way. N2 has LOVED these books as we have read them aloud (we still have two more to go to finish the series.)

The Wingfeather Saga by Andrew Peterson – these might be a bit too old for her, but if she has read the entire Harry Potter series, I would think she could handle the suspense of them (they aren’t gory at all). Very Narnia-ish as far as fantasy with lots of wonderful characters and creatures.

Horten's Miraculous Mechanisms: Magic,Mystery, & a Very Strange Adventure and it’s sequel Horten's Incredible Illusions: Magic, Mystery & AnotherVery Strange Adventure – a fun quirky series

Mr. Lemoncello’s Library – a mystery in a library with lots of literary references. There is also a sequel now!

Saavy, Scumble and Switch by Ingrid Law – three book series about a family that all develop curious abilities when they reach thirteen.

Inkheart, Inkspell andInkdeath. These might be a bit too old as well, but I would have probably eaten them up at 5^th or 6^th grade so I’m recommending them.

Betsy-Tacy series. If she hasn’t read these, she must. The first four are when Betsy and her friend Tacy are grade school age; the second four in the series are highschool and early married life. We haven’t read the second foursome yet, not because they are inappropriate in anyway, but just because I don’t think the girls will “get it” as much. But totally clean and delightful.

She might not be ready for Anne of Green Gables yet – I fell in love with the series around 6^th grade so she’s not far off. If you want to try some of L.M. Montgomery’s books with her, I would suggest Jane of Lantern Hill, or The Story Girl and it’s sequel, The Golden Road. The girls and I have read those three outloud and loved them. We are currently reading the first Anne book outloud and N2 and B are very into it. (N1 not as much, but just because she’s listened to it on audio!)

The All of A Kind Familybooks by Sydney Taylor. Five Jewish sisters living in depression era New York. So so good.

The Sisters’ Grimm – N2 just finished reading this series and loved it. All the fairy tale characters intermarried with real life and modern times.

Happy reading!

Our Read-Aloud Log for 2015

We have had a good year of reading aloud in our homeschool. We finished fifteen books altogether ... I'm noticing that the speed at which we are getting through books is decidedly slowing down as our books are getting bigger and taking longer. But, oh, we've read some good ones this year.

We started off January participating in Reading to Know's L.M. Montgomery Reading Challenge and diving deep in with Sara Stanley and the King cousins in The Story Girl (blogged here and here) and The Golden Road. To copy my friend Amy, I asked my girls individually what their favorite read-alouds were from 2015, and these two books came in first place with the oldest girls. N1 has since listened to these two books over and over (and over) on her iPod this fall. That makes me very excited for the 2016 L.M.M. challenge which kicks off today! Reading L.M.M. is not for the faint of heart - it took us over two months to finish these two books, but it was time well spent. 

Our handy-dandy chart to keep the King cousins organized!



In March we finished Amos Fortune, Free Man by Elizabeth Yates. I shared a quote from this story here. In April, we fell hard in love with the rabbits of The Green Ember. If you have still not read this story, do it. Make it a 2016 resolution!

All of a Kind Family by Sydney Taylor (blogged) was a quick read for us at the end of April / early May and another huge hit with the girls. According to B, this was her favorite read-aloud of the year - enough that she requested more books in this series of the stories of five sisters for Christmas, which we were happy to provide!



In May, we also tackled The Secret Garden. This was a book I had tried to read with N1 when she was 5 or 6 and ended up setting aside for the time being. This time, they ate it up, as evidence by the fact that it came in second place for N2 as a favorite for the year. (She also mentioned how much she loved The Little Princess, but I had to remind her that was one of our reads from 2014 so I couldn't include it in this summary). : )



Our read-aloud time slumped mightily this summer - older kids, lots of time spent at the pool, travels and summer camp cut into our days more that I expected. Not bad things, but it is a different season. We kept with our standard summer plan of moving on to a few sequels of ones that we loved during the school year - All of a Kind Family Downtown and The Castle of Llyr (Book 3 in The Prydian Chronicles). I don't recommend waiting as long as we did between books 2 and 3 of this fantasy series. One girl in particular wasn't a fan of it, mostly, I think, because it was hard to keep characters straight after such a long break.



We started our back to school read-alouds with Charlotte's Web by E.B. White. We picked this one with the boy in mind after the girls made a list of their not-to-be-missed read-alouds that they wanted to make sure he heard ... and the fact that we were going to see the play at the local children's theater and wanted to refamiliarize ourselves with the story. After that, we dove into our first read-aloud that would tie in with our year of ancient civilization study and read Tizrah. (This might have been one of my favorites for the year, but I don't know that I can commit to just one!) It brought the book of Exodus alive for me in a new way, and since I'm not a huge fan of fictionalizing the Bible, that is saying something.

Swiss Family Robinson by Johann David Wyss was another LONG read-aloud, lasting almost all of the month of September for us. It was a classic that I had never read, and I thoroughly enjoyed (as did the girls), though they will be quick to point out that it was NOTHING like the Disney movie. (I know, shock). We needed a short (easy) read after that and chose the The Black Star of Kingston by S.D. Smith, prequel to The Green Ember. Have I mentioned you should read The Green Ember?

The Golden Goblet by Eloise Jarvis Wilkins took most of October into early November and it was another great tie in with our history studies. Another one that I thoroughly enjoyed as I found the main character extremely sympathetic and well written.

We finished up November and December with The First Four Years, The Secret of the Old Clock, and The Family Under the Bridge. The First Four Years was one that I had put off for a couple of years now as it was the end of our (first) time reading through the Little House books, and because it is so much sadder that the other books (in my opinion). The Secret of the Old Clock was a fun (and much lighter) read after that, though I have said that I wouldn't highly recommend Nancy as a read aloud. One book was fun, but I'm glad we aren't making it a goal to read-aloud the whole series! We ended our year with The Family Under the Bridge and it was a sweet tale of Christmas in Paris and how hard times brought together an unlikely family. A short read and we finished it before we took a Christmas break from school.

I continue to be thankful for the wonderful books that we get to read-aloud together in our homeschooling journey. We actually took a big break from reading aloud over Christmas (three weeks!) As a consequence, we are all excited to pick our next book. As we had breakfast this morning we made some January plans for the book that we will start on Monday (hint: it's written by L.M. Montgomery!) and I'm also hoping to get us back into an evening read-aloud time routine at least a few nights a week.

Wishing you all a very happy new year and loads of good books in the coming twelve months for you!

What We're Reading // Family Edition, (late) May 2015

One of my favorite bloggers, Elise Joy, has a monthly series where she highlights what she and her almost 2-year old are currently reading. eating, etc. It wouldn't be quite as cute for me to post the shoes that my 8 year old are wearing (that girl is hard on shoes) but what books we are currently engrossed in ... that I can get behind.

As we end May...

Mama // The Beekeeper's Apprentice: On the Segregation of the Queen by Laurie R. King. I said I was going to finally finish this and I did (and before May was over!) A very detailed and engrossing mystery that I thoroughly enjoyed though I don't recommend taking as long to get through it as I did.



N1, age 11 // she has been binge reading the Warrior cat series this spring and is nearing the end of the series finally.



N2, age 9 // Yes, we let our 9 year old read Harry Potter. She has LOVED the series and done fine with it (I think largely in part to the huge amounts of reading aloud that we've done and discussion through the series when needed). In our house, when you finish 3rd grade, you are allowed to read the HP series if you are ready for it and she most definitely was.



B, age 8 // She just got this series for her birthday at beginning of month and has pronounced it to be her first book that she's tackling as part of our summer reading "project."



The boy, age 4 // He loves himself a funny picture book and this story, from the author of his beloved Dragons Love Tacos, tickles him to no end.



Current read aloud // All of a Kind Family Downtown. We're hoping to read several more books in this series this summer!



Happy June and happy reading! : )

1/365

Happy New Year! This year I'm easing into the new year nice and slow. I think there is a word for the year out there for me, but I'm sitting on it for a few more days and letting it percolate a bit. January is going to be all about a return to routine - in school, in home, in healthy eating and moving - with a few new things I want to fit into my days.



Day 1 - journals for each of my kids. This was an idea I spotted last year and 2015 is the year it happens. Just a sentence or two to remember something from their day. It won't always be profound - the boy's journal has a funny conversation documented that he and I had tonight about buying him some new underwear. : ) Even if I only write in everyone's journal a couple times a week it will be worth it a year from now.

October is My Favorite

Where to start.

The last five weeks have been ones of big BIG change for our family. The addition of a 14 year old girl has been such a blessing but there have also been some big hurdles and bumps that we have (and are) experiencing as we fit her into the family, as well as helping her overcome her own personal hurdles. (I hate the vagueness that life has to be right now in some areas. Please forgive the lack of specifics).

I've noticed that I'm not taking many pictures these days. I miss that. My plate is so full of what has to be done next that I'm not slowing down and being observant and thankful. I'm too busy focusing on the next meeting, the next school assignment, the next bathroom that must be cleaned, the next meal to be made. Those things are all very true and it's definitely helping me to be more focused and on task, but I'm drained when I don't take a little time to emotionally (creatively) recharge!)

October IS one of my favorite months. The changing leaves, all our family birthdays, the crisp weather ... I could go on and on. I've made myself a little photo challenge called #Octoberismyfavorite and I'm trying to remember to take a photo a day solely for the beauty that I am noticing that comes in the month of October and post it to Instagram. I'm not going for perfection ... I already missed posting yesterday ... but I'm slowly reminding myself to pause, look for beauty, and remember to be thankful that it is there even when the days are long and hard.

A glimpse at what I've captured since Wednesday:

Day 1: October means pumpkin in all the things ... pumpkin waffles for breakfast. (Also, in honesty, we are a cereal eating family at breakfast and we were out of all of it ... ergo, I had to actually MAKE breakfast!) Recipe from weelicious.



Day 2: take yesterday's pumpkin waffles. Add brown sugar cream cheese. You're welcome.



Day 2 (bonus): pre-birthday celebrating the night before.



Day 3: Eleven is my new favorite. She's already great at being eleven.



Day 3 (bonus): also, ten is my favorite. (All the ages are my favorite!) Celebrating the one and only nephew with a fantastic photobomb by my dad in the background.



Day 4: Soccer on cool, crisp Saturday mornings. And the fact that this girl played ... that's a whole post in itself that I need to write up to remember. So proud of her yesterday and definitely an October favorite.



To be continued...

Book Talk :: The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill

I cannot tell a lie - I loved this book!

I rarely buy books on a whim - and typically not without the recommendation of a friend or two or three. I'm trying to remember what exactly I was searching for on Amazon when this popped on to my screen. One of those, "if you like books by this author, try this..." A quick skim through the description on Amazon, plus a cover that enticed me and I was convinced enough to give it a try. I'm so glad I did!

Hazel Kaplansky is a fifth grader in search a little mystery and adventure. It is 1953 - the age of McCarthyism and the search is on for communists under every bush and around every door. Even arriving on her doorstep, in the small town of Maple Hill, Vermont, where Hazel's parents run the town's cemetery. Hazel has read every Nancy Drew story and just knows that she has found a spy in her parent's new employed grave digger, Mr. Jones. Hazel teams up with Samuel Butler, a new boy in her class, to try and ferret out why Mr. Jones has come to their small town. Hazel also is curious about Samuel - everyone in the town seems to know something about him but her and she is determined to find out why people treat him differently. Throughout the course of the story, Hazel learns a bit how to differentiate between what she imagines to be true and actual facts and how spreading stories and rumor can be more costly that one might think.

This was a great upper elementary aged story. It gives a overview of what life would have been like in the early 50's, after the end of WW2, when our nation was right in the middle of Cold War America. It captures the fear, the uncertainty, and the speculation that was in the current events of the time and how it could trickle down, even to the smaller towns. For example:

Hazel was not afraid of much, but she was afraid of Communists. The Russians had been American allies in the Second World War, but after the war, things had soured and now the Russians were turning all the countries around them Communist, and they wanted to do the same thing to America. They were just waiting for the opportunity to come over and make all the people here exactly like them: no choices, no freedom, and no ice-cream floats from the soda fountain in the drugstore, even if you'd been on your best behavior all day. Samuel had been right that the Greeks had started democracy, which meant that the people got a say in how things worked. Americans had those rights, and the Communists wanted to take that away. And now there was a chance that thee were Red spies right in her town! (p. 42)

Hazel was also an extremely likeable character. A lot smart and a little bit quirky. I loved when they would share a bit of what was going on inside her mind.

Hazel liked to imagine what Miss Lerner's [the librarian's] house was like. She pictured it as just like the library, full of books with neat labels on the spines. If her parents were ever to die in a horrible, tragic accident, she hoped that Miss Lerner would adopt her, and they would catalog books all the time. (p. 45)

Another example, when she is describing the local gas station where her friend Mr. Wall works:

Hazel liked the mix of gasoline, tar, rubber, and tobacco. It smelled like a job well done. (p. 33) 

She's smart and has a plan, though sometimes it doesn't work out quite like she anticipates it will. She's a loyal friend to Samuel. Even though she gets herself into a scrape or two, one of the things that I really like about her is that she was teachable. She learned from her mistakes and went back and corrected them or moved forward knowing she needed to do things differently.

The Spy Catchers of Maple Hill is one that I'll be handing over to N1 (and maybe even N2) this year as we participate in Cycle 3 of Classical Conversations this coming year. Our focus is American History, and this will be a excellent, age appropriate way for her to get a picture of this era in our nation's history. And, besides the excellent historical background, it's a great little mystery with some life lessons in there that I can heartily get behind. I might even try this as a read-aloud with all my girls - I think they would all be able to understand, and most definitely enjoy, the story. Once I started it, I had a hard time putting it down. This is the first book that I've ready by Megan Frazer Blakemore and I'm looking forward to checking out her other elementary aged story (The Water Castle) soon.

10 on the 10th :: February 2014

A few smattering of photos from our Monday. Mondays tend to be a favorite day around here. Although it's generally quite busy because we are finishing up work for CC on Tuesday or playing catch-up on the weekend's laundry, we are typically home all day. Those are my favorite.



Monday breakfast. Cinnamon roll waffles for the kids + a smoothie for me. (I haven't been making it out to run at all lately ergo no sweets for me).



Piano practice for this one. She has switched from violin to piano (same teacher) and we are thinking this is a much better fit for her right now. And she's loving it.



A fun Valentine's-y coloring page during our morning read-aloud time. We usually do read-aloud after lunch, but we switched the schedule around some today.



Exploding the Code. : )



Putting together the final touches on her IEW paper for Tuesday.



Labeling and typing. (Note: I ended up doing the bulk of the typing in for her though she usually does it. We were pressed for time today).



Mama needs refueling.



And on to math after lunch.



A few snuggles with the boy.



Pulling our next read-aloud off the shelf. Reading along with the Reading to Know February bookclub; technically they are reading Little House on the Prairie, but we are jumping ahead to the book in the series that we are on.

Monday in a nutshell. On Tuesday's agenda? We are home (unexpectedly) today from CC with a round of pink-eye so our afternoon will include an outing for some antibiotics. B had it over the weekend, and I had hopes that we caught it before it spread but no such luck! Ah, well. Thankful everyone is in good spirits although disappointed we are missing friends today and that it's not something worse!

Simple Things Sunday

Cello by Christmas light.



Linking up with Rebecca.

Project Life :: September 30–October 6

Birthday week! And the start of the world’s busiest fall break. : )



Up above, on the left:

• snaps of the boy. What a ham. (Button from one of my Studio Calico kits and digi paper from Paislee Press)
• N1 presenting her paper in her Essentials class.
• B & I playing with self-portraits in black and white
• of note: I think most of the cards on the left are from random and assorted Studio Calico kits.

On the right – this whole side is devoted to the 10-year old. Her birthday was Thursday which involved the birthday girl’s choice of breakfast at Panera, going shooting with Daddy and lots of time in the kitchen whipping up birthday treats. The bottom right photo is from her birthday party which we had at the nearby bowling alley. This was our first out of the house / someone else take care of a lot of the details birthday party and I can’t say enough good things about a bowling party (at least at the place we used). It fit our budget, the kids had a ball, and they actually stood around and visited with each other which is my main complaint at birthday places where everyone runs off in a hundred different directions and you never even see the birthday person. Two thumbs up. The cards on this side are from one of the PL theme kits – Celebrate – which I spotted at Hobby Lobby and bought as a total impulse purchase. : )





(I was not having good luck taking great pictures today). More party shots on the back + cards from the Celebrate kit on the left.



On the right above are a few photos from the rest of the week:

• I served in the boy’s class at Bible study this week so a couple pictures from that.
• and the rest of the photos are all from Sunday when we had a family lunch celebrating all the October birthdays. N1, our nephew, and the boy are all within a four day window.

 

These next few pics are actually from the following week, but it continues on the birthday theme so I’m rolling with it. This is all about the boy and his day. His big request was the zoo with his cousin so we made it happen. The new kangaroo exhibit had just opened so that was a huge highlight!



More cards from the Celebrate kit.





Also getting my money’s worth out of some Paislee Press digi templates I bought quite a while ago. They are great when you have lots of pictures you want to use but don’t want to add in tons of inserts.



In other news, I knuckled down this week and finally finished the first half of 2013:



It’s not overly stuffed – this goes through the first week of July. I could have probably added more, but it stops after our family trip to Ohio which was a natural place for a break between books. Noticeably absent is T and N2’s trip to Guatemala from this summer, but I’m planning on making a PL mini album with those pictures, hopefully sooner rather than later. Otherwise, it feels good to be less behind that I was before. : )

Project Life is a product and a system created by Becky Higgins and available on Amazon.com, DigitalProjectLife.com, and many major craft retailers. It can be anything you want it to be. You can view all my posts about Project Life here. I'm always happy to answer questions about how Project Life works for me, if you have any. Affiliate links used where available.