Posts Tagged ‘books’

Thursday Thirteen #2

{ October 23, 2008 @ 3:52 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Thirteen Books I Think You Should Read (in no particular order)

1. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott

2. The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

3. The Seven Silly Eaters by Mary Ann Hoberman

4. Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes

5. The Mysterious Island by Jule Verne

6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince by JK Rowling (all of them, but that’s my favorite)

7. The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan (again all the Percy Jackson books but this one in particular)

8. Unwind by Neil Shusterman

9. The House of the Scorpion by Nancy Farmer

10. The Stand by Stephan King

11. All the Places to Love by Patricia Maclachlan

12. The People of Sparks by Jeanne Duprau (you need to read The City of Ember first)

13. Odd Thomas by Dean Koontz (this is another series, I can’t pick one!)

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

 

You’ll notice a lot of young adult fiction, and I admit to being a sucker for it, but try them out anyway….these are really good books! Some of these are even picture books (#’s 3, 4 and 11). These are the ones I can still recall with fondness from my kid’s younger years, they have true staying power and are worth looking in IMO. The others are just the books I like to read over and over, or in the case of the Odd Thomas books wait impatiently for the latest installment.

Our Trip to the Bookstore

{ February 24, 2008 @ 5:16 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Yesterday we spent the day shopping.  We even went out to lunch in a real restaurant! We visited several stores; the craft store to buy supplies for making math gnomes, the pet store to get our hermit crabs some new food, the sports store in search of knee pads for K to wear to Hip Hop (poor kid is all bruised!), even the grocery store!  It was all very fun, but the highlight of the trip was our visit to Barnes and Noble. 

B headed straight for the trains.  Yes, I know he’s nine, but he’s a still a sucker for a train set and since he’s always gentle with the littles I let him play.  He did eventually look at the books and chose the Kingfisher Knowledge book about Dinosaurs by Nigel Marvin (one of his heroes-along with Mike Holmes :) ).  M made a bee line for the Disney Fairy books and was beyond excited to find her only missing volume The Trouble with Tink. K stopped at the young adult books and found many she was interested in including several new volumes of her favorite series (I think she actually screamed when she spotted one LOL!). 

I ended up in the *Classics* section because I could easily see both M and B from there.  I was looking over some really nice versions of the classics there, I was originally thinking of buying Alice in Wonderland to read to B and M but then spotted Frankenstein. I have always wanted to read Frankenstein and really liked this version (it had nice, wide pages and the paper felt nice-I have a thing about paper). I looked at the price, $9.95 for a hardcover?!?  I was sold! K wandered over and we found some more that interested us.  To make a long story..well…a little less long, we ended up buying Frankenstein, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea and (I’m sure this will shock you all) a Sherlock Holmes anthology. 

After that I went to the *real* history section in search of some books on the French Revolution.  I was ultimately unsuccessful, but I did find some really cool books on American History.  K is not excited about learning American History so I got her these books:

The Cartoon History of the United States  and

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U. S. History for Dummies 

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K really liked them and I think along with some of the historical fiction she so loves we should be able to cover the subject with a minimum of trauma.  Of course I do intend to make her read a few more serious volumes; both Moral Minority, Our Skeptical Founding Fathers and Lies My Teacher Told Me are on our list (and available at Barnes and Noble) and I’m sure I’ll find a few more in time! This is a good start anyway. 

              

I Love This Book!

{ February 18, 2008 @ 11:53 pm } · { Uncategorized }
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Our wonderful Gramma Betty offered to buy us a book to help with our homeschooling and this is what I picked from the catalog:

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The Timechart History of Revolutions-3000 years of Rebellion, Civil War and Revolutionary Change by Meredith Macardle, Nicola Chalton and Pascal Thivillon

I chose the book because my kids are really drawn to the dramatic bits of history, and revolutions certainly qualify.  I figured a book about revolutions would certainly hold their attention!  Also because we are still dabbling in the American Revolution and are about to start the French.  It turned out to be a great decision, not only because all three of the kids keep picking it up and reading bits (or looking at pictures in the case of B) but because I really, really like this book!

Inside the first section is laid out as a giant time line, with the different regions of the world on backgrounds of differing colors (yellow for Europe, red for the Americas, etc) which allows for easily comparing what was going on across the world at any given time.

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If that weren’t cool enough, there are flaps that open on each of these pages the talk about a subject important to the time period in that portion of the time line.  Then (can you stand anymore excitement?) there is a second section that has more information about some of the larger, more well known conflicts. 

I think I’m in History geek heaven!

I saw when I looked up the authors that there are several of these books.  Good thing we are due for a tax refund soon!

What we do all day

{ February 6, 2008 @ 3:49 am } · { Uncategorized }
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I know some people think that homeschooling means you stay at home all day, sitting at the kitchen table with the kids, doing schoolwork.  Well, that’s not what we do here! I have never been one to assign the kids a schedule like this:

Awake at 7AM

Chores and breakfast

math from 9-9:30

It feel too artificial to me (but that’s just me-if you do that sort of thing, more power to you).

Our schedule looks more like this:

Monday-

Get up 7AM (me and M, the other kids get up whenever) 

get M on bus

breakfast

Open homeschool gym 10:30-12

Grab lunch

Drop B at school for reading/math/OT/speech @ 12:30

Foster granny visit 1:30-3:30

B and M home on bus at 3:30

Daycare kid 2-9:30

Dinner

K’s dance class 7-8

Do some schoolwork (workbooks, read, work on projects)

bed

Tuesday-

Get up

get M on bus

breakfast

Mom’s group 9:30-11 (K volunteers in childcare)

library trip

lunch, Drop B at reading/math @1:30

B and M home at 3:30

daycare kid at 2:30-9:30

dinner

do some work

bed

Wednesday-

(OK I think you get the get up, eating, the bus schedule and going to bed so I’ll leave that off now!)

Drop B at reading/math/OT /speech @12:30

daycare kid from 2-9:30

Thursday-

Homeschool gym class for B 10:30-12

Music appreciation for K 10:30-11:15 (B will join in a few weeks)

science class (led by me!) 12-1

daycare kid 2:30-9:30

M’s ballet class 4:30-5:15

Friday-

Book discussion group (once a month) 10-11

Drop B at school for reading/math @1:30

We tend to fit in book work whenever we can although I read to B and M from several books before bed every night (one literature, one science, one history and one of thier choice-right now they are Stuart Little, DNA, B.Franklin Printer,  and The Spiderwick Chronicles ;) ).  Our homeschool philosophy is literature based so that is a huge part of B’s schooling. 

As you have probably figured out B does part time at the local public school.  That is something new.  B was diagnosed with a learning disability late in 2007 and I feel I need a little extra help.  He seems to be enjoying it and he’s really only there 1.5hrs a day (he was already getting the speech/OT) so we are giving it a try. He also has several phonics and math workbooks around the house that he will pick up now and then.  He spends a lot of time outside and helping his dad. 

M goes to school full time in a specialized autism program.  It is excellent and encompasses all the things I love about homeschooling (kids work at their own pace, multi ages together, low teacher/student ratio, stable staff from year to year, differences are embraced) and also encompasses all of the therapies she needs (speech/OT/PT/play/horseback riding/adaptive PE/guided peer social groups) and which I would otherwise be spending most of my day schlepping her to.  She LOVES school and it is a really good fit for her.

K is home full time and wouldn’t have it any other way.  She attended school from ages 4-9 and never wants to go back.  It’s just not her thing.  She’s an introvert and is slow to warm up to new things so school was not a good fit for her.  Now she gets her time with peers (dance, music, open gym, book group) and also plenty of time at home and plenty of down time.  She is my reader and my history nut, a good combination!

So that’s us in a nutshell!