some of what they read
One of the things I get asked most about is what books my kids read. There isn’t an easy (or short!) answer for those questions. I told my oldest I wanted him to start gathering his thoughts for a guest post about his favorite books. Hopefully I can get him to write that soon. Until then, I thought I would share about how I incorporate books into what we are learning in ‘school’.
Both my kids and I am fans of ‘living books’. In a very basic sense these are books that bring to life what you are reading typically using a narrative form. Instead of a dry text book on the American Revolution, I provide my kids with books that teach about the American Revolution but through a narrative form.
While teaching the kids historical facts, I then find living books that will make those facts come alive and help them remember what they are learning.
In a nutshell, my kids read a lot of historical fictions, biographies and autobiographies. My oldest actually prefers these types of books, so that makes things really easy for me.
This year we will be studying ancient history. The middle shelf holds the books my kids will be reading to themselves or I will be reading aloud during the first 12 weeks of school. I am still working on organizing them and have some more to add. My oldest can’t handle new books on the shelf. He has already read almost all of them. I can’t keep up.
I added red washi tape to each book we will reading for school and added a number to mark which week they will read the book.
Note to fellow CC parents: The red signifies “Cycle 1” and the number is which week of the cycle. I use a different color of washi tape for Cycle 2 and Cycle 3. This will allow me to quickly find what books go with what cycle and week when my younger kids are ready to read them.
Since I am picking my books based on specific things we will be studying, I found booklists that other parents created. The main list I used is by Half A Hundred Acre Wood. I printed that list (it is several pages) and put it in a binder. I then found a few other lists and cross referenced. If a book was mentioned on three lists, I highlighted it as one I wanted to find. Other books I saw recommended that looked good, I penciled in at the bottom of the lists. All the lists were so long, this was a way for me to narrow it down. You got to start somewhere!
From there I made two main lists: books to own, books to check out. Since I needed certain books at certain times, I could not depend on the library. I purchased books from Bibliomania in Tulsa – I highly recommend that place….a homeschoolers dream. Discount books from wall to wall. I did order a couple from Amazon and the rest we will check out.
If you look closely, you will also see stickers on the bottom of each book spine (right picture). These are date stickers – a genius idea I gained from my friend Amy. She wrote a more detailed post about this {click here for her post}. All this organization makes me ridiculously giddy. No joke. 
Another book series that my oldest enjoys is The Story of the World. I bought these to read aloud small sections, but he likes to read them by himself. There is actually tons of extra stuff that goes along with this series, but we just like the books.
Behind the cabinet doors is all of our other school books. I still have lots of organizing to do and the kids have all their other books in the house. It is all a work in progress. We are constantly finding good book deals – like abridged versions of classics in the Target dollar bins (so great for early readers).
All that to say, a lot of the time when you see pictures of my boys reading it is something I’ve purchased with intention of them learning something (historical, character traits, etc.) as they read. The great thing about well written living books and classics is they are so interesting my kids can’t put them down. It doesn’t feel like assigned reading to them – I am so thankful for that! Of course the kids also have favorite books that they are reading just for fun too. I’m really trying to get them to help me with that post soon!
