Branches

There's a fantastic new series of books for kids who are still learning to read longer and longer books. I'd say these books are perfect for 1st through 3rd graders. They have lots of fantastic pictures, but they are longer than say, Henry and Mudge, and the vocabulary gets increasingly more difficult.

They are just short enough, however, for a child to read the whole thing in one block of time, something important for emerging readers who aren't yet ready to read books by chapter.

It's Scholastic's emerging reader series: Branches. The variety in this series is so tremendous, there is no way you won't find something your child will love.

Flannery loves all of them, and her reading is getting better and better every day thanks to these books.

How We Do Homeschooling (right now) Part Two

Flannery

Age: 6
Temperament: Cheerful (unless she doesn't get what she wants—then hound dog is the best way to describe her)
Struggles that make homeschooling tricky: Can be lazy. Prone to fibbing. Doesn't like to do hard things.
Passions: art, writing

I was worried about homeschooling Flannery. I've always had a rule since I attempted this back in 2008 that I would never homeschool a child until they were completely self-sufficient, particularly with reading.

But you try telling your six-year-old that everyone else gets to be homeschooled while you have to go to school by yourself. She liked Kindergarten most of the time, but her teacher was not super tuned into her (or any of the kids), and there were times last year when she asked why she couldn't be homeschooled like Mary and Shaemus.

I will admit something right now. There was a lot of meaningless threatening going on the first few weeks of homeschool. I probably said, "If you don't do (fill in the blank), you will go back to school tomorrow," five thousand times.

I didn't really mean it, but I said it, and it did no good, but patiently training Flannery has done some good. She is very, very independent. I just have to make sure she's actually done what she says she's done.

This is Flannery's schedule:

Cello practice from 8-9
Math with Teaching Textbooks from 9-10
Reading from 10-11
Workbooks (see below) and writing 11-12
Art (drawing, sculpting, painting)/P.E./Piano/Building/Science and basically anything else she's interested in doing the rest of the day.

Official school isn't that long for Flannery, but because it is really long for everyone else, she ends up doing extra work without knowing it's happening. We have a bazillion books for her to explore here and we go to the library every week. I'm finding her curled up alone with a book, her lips moving silently, more and more often. Her reading gets better every single day, and she's doing surprisingly well with math.

She likes to save everything she makes and everything everyone else makes, and she never wants to clean up after herself. She makes my house a wreck. This is a MAJOR problem I have patience with about one time out of ten, but...

I am loving homeschooling her. I told a friend just yesterday that everything around our house seems to get happier and happier as each day passes.

My kids are being creative, and they are being creative all day long.

Yesterday, Flannery made a crazy elephant out of playdough. It doesn't sound like much, but she spent a long time on this elephant, and it was the best playdough sculpture I've ever seen. She's been designing her own board game complete with complicated instructions, math, warnings, and fabulous pictures. She made a 3D map of the world the other day out of model magic—all done completely on her own, and it was really, really good! (I'd post pictures if I had a phone that took pictures, but I do not. Maybe one day.) She has been teaching herself the piano, and she really is doing it! She works in the yard with me and makes discoveries every few seconds (Mom, what's a grub good for? Why does that squirrel have an ouchy on its back? What would hurt it? How is this growing here? Why do weeds keep coming?). Her stories are fabulous—about things like jellyfish that eat vegetables for a job.

All of this comes from within her. It seems to me that creativity is something that bubbles and froths and grows and grows when given the best ingredients. It is limitless. It never diminishes under the right conditions. And the confidence kids get when they create something interesting from start to finish after much trial and effort is indescribable.

If you gauged learning on engagement (meaning both mind and heart are completely occupied in a task), Flannery is learning at home every single second of homeschool (with the possible exception of the two workbooks I have her work in every day...). Not a minute of her time is wasted, and man, that makes her one happy kid.

My Website and Squirrel's World

My book is coming out March 31 of next year. Here is the cover!

You have to have a website if you have a book (it is a law of the internet), so I have a website now. I'm linking this blog to the website, and I suppose I'll have to link this blog to the website. I'm also going to try to be more active on twitter, and I will occasionally recommend books on twitter as well as here. 

My website: lindsayeyre.com and my twitter name (or whatever that is called...) is @lindsayeyre (I think).

Now, onto the good stuff.

Flannery just read out loud to me a favorite book I've never blogged about before:

SQUIRREL'S WORLD by Lisa Moser

A perfect read aloud for you to your child or for your child to you. You can't help but love Squirrel, and Valeri Gorbachev is one of my favorite illustrators!

Ages 3 and up for a read aloud. Ages 6 and up to read on their own.

Disgusting Creatures

I love nonfiction like this. LOVE IT! Flannery's all about worms now!

Ages 6 and up.

From Amazon:

One in a series of humorous books about disgusting creatures, The Slug is a look at the land slug. It covers such topics as the slug's two pairs of tentacles, one pair for seeing, one pair for smelling (it can see you're a kid and smell like broccoli), its breathing hole (on the side of its head!), and its pretty gross mucous covering (in order to find a partner, the slug can follow another slug's mucous trail. True love!). Although silly and off-the-wall, The Slugcontains real information that will tie in with curriculum.

Mouse and Mole—Ages 6 and up

Mouse and Mole are proving good friends for Flannery. These early chapter books have a lot of text, but the characters' adventures are both so interesting and so recognizable, she manages to make it through an entire book without checking to see how many pages she has left more than once or twice.

On the same level as Houndsley and Catina and Commander Toad.

Ages six and up.

WILD ABOUT BEARS

This book is so seriously cool. Check it out from the library and stick it on the table and see what happens.

Then ask your kid what kind of bear they think they would be (kind of like which Hogwarts house they would be sorted into). Personally, I love the spectacled bear, though at times I think I'm more like the sloth bear or the giant panda...

Just a heads up—there are no Koalas in this book.

Ages 6 and up—really for everybody!!!

This comprehensive look at the world’s eight bear species focuses first on common physical traits and behaviors before profiling each bear. Discover the habits and habitats of the polar bear, brown bear, American black bear, spectacled bear, Asiatic black bear, sloth bear, sun bear, and giant panda and marvel at the adaptations each has developed to survive in a challenging world.

Costco's Fairytales

This is kind of weird, I know, but I love Costco's soft-cover classics, and I stumbled on these yesterday. Altogether, that makes 221 Grimm fairytales. They are strange, they are weird, but they are truly awesome. I look at fairytales as similar to classical music for kids. They are simply good for the brain. They are part of the collective unconscious for our society and they help kids make connections they wouldn't otherwise make.

Fairytales are important. Truly. And they are short. Easy reads before bed. Plus these versions (available at Costco for nine dollars) are leather bound and gorgeous. Worth every penny!

Wolf Story

One of my favorite book collections is the New York Review Collections. These are older books republished in a beautiful—gorgeous—format.

This story is odd, delightful, intriguing, engrossing, funny, stimulating, and one of the best read-alouds I've ever read.

I am weird, and this is a weird book, but it is absolutely delightful. It represents a different level of writing and story-telling. A higher level. A transcendent level.

Wolf Story by William McCleery (published originally in 1947)

Ages 6 and up

This irresistible book is about: a father; his five-year-old son, Michael (intelligent, crafty, addicted to stories); Michael’s best friend Stefan (stalwart listener, equally addicted to stories); and, well—what else?—a story.

Oh, and a wolf. It is as Michael always demands: a Wolf Story, which begins one night at bedtime and spins wildly on through subsequent bedtimes and Sunday outings to the beach and park in a succession of ever more trickily tantalizing episodes. Waldo the wolf is sneaking up on Rainbow the hen, when Jimmy Tractorwheel, the son of the local farmer, comes along. After that, there’s no knowing what will happen next, as while stalled in traffic jams or nodding off at night, the boys chime in and the story races on and Waldo finds, if not necessarily dinner, his just desserts.

First published in 1947 and wonderfully illustrated by Warren Chappell, William McCleery’sWolf Story is a delicious treat for fathers and sons and daughters and mothers alike.

From Amazon: