Learning Together Tuesday: Spring Program 2012

Last week we put on our annual spring program. Both sets of grandparents were able to attend and enjoy the music, recitations, narrations and presentations that the children worked so hard on over this past year. Here was the program for our preschooler, 1st grader and 3rd grader:

Song

Just One God is He

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Recitations

The Ten Commandments

School Motto

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ABC presentation by Jonathan

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Hymns

Be You Holy

The Lord God Reigns!

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Group Poetry Recitation

A Child’s Prayer

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Vocal Solo

The Holy City – Abigail

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Individual Poetry Recitations

Jonathan – Autumn Fires (Stevenson)

Iliana – Good Hours (Frost)

Abigail – “I’ll tell you how the sun rose” (Dickinson)

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Bible History Narrations

Iliana – The Parable of the Sower

Abigail – The Conversion of Saul

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Piano Solos

Iliana – Sailing in the Sun (plus singing)

Abigail – Andante, The Can-Can, The Pirate of the North Sea

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Nature Study Narrations

Jonathan – snakes

Iliana – turtles

Abigail – crocodilians

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Folk Song

Aikendrum (with instruments)

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On the display table:

Composer notebooks

Crop plants

Day of Creation posters

Geography map studies

Handwriting samples

Nature sketch books

Nature study posters

Ancient Rome coloring sheets

Sewing samples

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A few pictures from the day…

Abigail gives her Bible history narration

Jonathan gives his nature study presentation
(He narrated what he knew, I wrote it on the poster, he found/glued the pictures)

Grace enjoys joining in on the folk song

Iliana hones her public speaking skills by
giving her presentation and doing a Q&A at the end

Learning Together Tuesday: Amphibians

“Frogs have it easy – they can eat what bugs them.”

We’ve been having a fun time learning about amphibians for this term’s nature study. The timing for this study worked out perfectly with the “mini spring” we had back in early March. The frogs came out early and we were able to catch some tadpoles for observation. We’ve been keeping them for 5 weeks now and each week the children sketch any changes they see in their nature notebooks.

We could hear far many more frogs and toads than we could see on our property, so we decided to try and learn to identify them by their calls. We found a great book and CD combo that helped us to differentiate the calls very quickly. We now enjoy taking walks and knowing which frogs and toads to look for in the water.

We have been able to capture three species of amphibians so far, which we kept for a short while to observe, sketch and take notes on: the American Toad, the Green Frog and the Leopard Frog.

Toad is not happy about being confined even for a few minutes!

A toad makes short, high release calls when being handled.

Mr. Toad and Miss Abigail having a conversation

Iliana gets a closer look at the green frog.
Note the eardrum circle is larger than the eye, meaning that it is a male.

Nice and slimy

Abigail brings a leopard frog into the house to show me

We found some very interesting books in the course of our study that I’ll share below. I was skeptical about finding living books about amphibians, because there are so many junky nature/science books out there for children consisting of dry information that wouldn’t excite anyone! I was pleasantly surprised with the books that I was able to find.

Here were our favorites:

Toad by the Road
By Joanne Ryder
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A collection of short poems that describe a toad’s activities throughout the year. Just enough real facts and just enough fun make this book a perfect way to introduce young children to these amphibians. A real gem of a book

The Toad Hunt
By Janet Chenery
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An easy introduction to toads that inspires children to be young field scientists.
An I-CAN-READ Science Book.

Toad
By Ruth Brown
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Short, very descriptive book about the slimy, gooey, bitter, venomous toad was a hit with my kids, especially Jonathan! Short text and very interesting illustrations.

Bullfrog at Magnolia Circle
By Deborah Dennard
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Love, love, LOVE the Smithsonian Backyard Series! By following along with the creature and experiencing things the way they do, you don’t realize how much you’re learning!

Peeper, First Voice of Spring
By Robert McClung
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Similar to the book above, this older book follows the life of a spring peeper frog.

All About Frogs
By Jim Arnosky
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You can’t really go wrong with Arnosky’s nature books. They give the information about the animal that children would want to know about, with great sketches and illustrations. (I prefer this book over Gail Gibbons’ similar one, which has evolutionary content.)

Dig, Wait and Listen:
A Desert Toad's Tale
By April Sayre
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A very fun and interesting book for young children. We wait along with the desert toad as he hears the different sounds of the desert, waiting for that one sound that will call him out.

The Case of the
Vanishing Golden Frogs:
A Scientific Mystery
By Sandra Markle
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Take a fascinating journey along with frog scientists as they try to discover what is killing off entire populations of frogs in Central America. This scientific mystery is still ongoing today.

The Frog Scientist
By Pamela S. Turner
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An interesting biography about the life work of a frog scientist, Tyrone Hayes. Full of full-color photographs and an interesting narrative, this book for grades 4-6 might inspire a future field biologist in your family!

The Frog Alphabet Book
By Jerry Pallotta
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This book is actually an amphibian alphabet book, with descriptions of some of the lesser known amphibians accompanied by great illustrations.

A First Look at Frogs, Toads and Salamanders
By Millicent Selsam
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I thought this unassuming black-and-white picture book would not have much to offer, but we thoroughly enjoyed discovering what makes an amphibian an amphibian through the questions and answers in the book.

Frog Heaven
By Doug Wechsler
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Describes what happens through the year in a vernal pool – those “ponds” that fill up and then dry up by the end of summer. Very interesting to us since we had one on our last property.

The Salamander Room
By Anne Mazer
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A fanciful book about a boy’s plans to make his bedroom a suitable habitat for the salamander he finds outside.

Red-spotted Newt
By Doris Gove
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Another “day in the life of” book – this time about a salamander. We’ve never seen a salamander (yet) in our state, but we’re on the lookout!

The Golden Guide to
Reptiles and Amphibians
By Herbert S. Zim
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We love the Golden Field Guides because of their clear, uncluttered pages, fine illustrations and just enough information for the beginner.

The Frogs and Toads of North America
By Lang Elliott
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An awesome book! Beautiful full-page photographs for each species and an accompanying CD of each species’ calls. We’re working on learning the calls of each of the species that live in our state.

And a couple of fun chapter books for beginning readers…

Among the Pond People
By Clara Pierson

The Adventures of Old Mr. Toad
By Thornton W. Burgess

The Adventures of Grandfather Frog
By Thornton Burgess

For more Learning Together Tuesday posts, click HERE.

Learning Together Tuesday: Poetry

Poetry.

Does the word conjure up your 10th grade English teacher, droning on and on? Or being made to dissect, analyze, and beat to death phrases that had no meaning to you?

Or perhaps the word makes you think of a lovesick fool trying to “get his feelings out”?

Are you a person who thinks that poetry is only something for English professors, knights trying to win the hand of a fair lady, or people who feign sophistication?

(Raises hand.)

I was, too! Even though I wrote my own poetry as a teenager and young adult, I was intimidated by “real” poetry and consequently, avoided it. So why in the world would I make poetry a part of my homeschool curriculum- even for my 4-6 year olds?

Well, first I should answer the question: Why does poetry exist?

Today, poetry is an absolute necessity. The world needs it for its vitalizing strength. Poetry came into being for this need, and it is perpetuated for the same reason.

Poetry has nearly everything that music can give – melody, rhythm, sentiment – but it has this advantage: it can come closer to the heart. Therefore it can have a more personal and a more lasting appeal.

It satisfies a hunger for beauty that is a part of nearly every person’s normal makeup.

It recaptures vanished moments and recreates scenes that have grown dim through passing years.

It entertains, it inspires, and, in time of need, it comforts.

- Edward Frank Allen (from the forward to The Best Loved Poems of the American People)

Poetry is a part of our human culture that is often closest to a person’s heart. Sometimes, fewer words can express more than entire volumes. My mother, like David of the Bible, has written many poems that were a comfort to her at the time of her life, but have carried on to encourage others to this day. Some poems tell about our history. Others memorialize a person’s life. And yet others speak of God’s glorious creation. Yes, there is “junk” poetry that is not worthy of our time. But it is not the genre that is the problem, but rather, the person writing it.

A second thing to ask when you discuss the reason for reading/teaching/studying poetry is: What separates poetry from the regular text of a picture book?

Helen Ferris, who collected the poems found in the book Favorite Poems, Old and New, recounts how her mother shared with her and her brother a love of poetry:

Later I was to learn that Mama had an articulate theory about reading poetry aloud to children, a theory not surprising for she was a pianist. It did not matter, she was convinced, if we could not understand all the words. We could enjoy the beautiful sound of them. So it was that…Mother Goose flowed easefully into Alfred Tennyson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow into Shakespeare. (p. iv)

Poetry has a rhythm to it.

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 ”Poetry is the rhythmical creation of beauty in words.” – Edgar Allen Poe

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In addition to the flow and rhythm of poetry, something else separates it from regular picture book text: descriptive language. The descriptive language found in poetry helps children to understand figures of speech, such as simile and metaphor, that they’ll encounter in everyday life. For example, in the poem “Fog” by Carl Sandburg, the line -

“The fog comes in on little cat feet…” 

- helps a child to see how the fog came in because they can relate it to something they are familiar with. This is a different type of thinking that takes more “brain work” and as an educator, I love things that promote more brain work.

Poetry helps children to think more creatively, by showing them that it is possible to describe an object in many different ways. For example, can you guess what the following poem is describing?

White sheep, white sheep
On a blue hill,
When the wind stops,
You all stand still.

When the wind blows,
You walk away slow.
White sheep, white sheep,
Where do you go?

A little poem that my children like is entitled “Brooms”:

On stormy days
When the wind is high
Tall trees are brooms
Sweeping the sky

They swish their branches
In buckets of rain,
And swash and sweep it
Blue again

-Dorothy Aldis

They like how the descriptive words in the poem create a picture they can clearly see in their mind, without a photograph or painted canvas nearby.

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Poetry is language at its most distilled and most powerful. – Rita Dove

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How do we study poetry in our home school?

We get acquainted with 1 poet for 12 weeks (1 term). By the end of the term, we have a good idea of the style of his or her poetry and what differentiates the poet from others. We like to read a short biography about the poet, if it is available, to “get to know” him better. During the exchange between poet and reader that comes from simply reading a poem, we have “made friends” with many different types of people. Choose the right poets and poems, and you can broaden your children’s range of the expression of ideas.

By simply reading the poems, we discover the same thing that the poet Walter de la Mare found when out when he was a child -

“…The more I read, the more I came to enjoy [poems] for their own sakes. Not all of them, of course. But I did see this, that like a carpenter who makes a table, a man who has written a poem has written it like that on purpose.”

- from the introduction to Come Hither: A Collection of Rhymes and Poems For the Young of all Ages

When we come to realize that a poet writes his poem on purpose, we can begin to ask ourselves the question – “Why did he write it this way?” Interest and curiosity lead to inquisitiveness which leads to analysis. You don’t just start by analyzing something that you have no interest in. It just doesn’t work that way!

Another way we study poetry is that we seek out nature poetry that relates to a new season that we are entering or poetry written by someone in the period of history we are studying. Poetry then becomes an integral part of the study of mankind, not merely a “subject” to be checked off the school to-do list.

Some ways in which we learn to love the poems that we study:

      

Illustrate them.

Narrate them back.

Use them for handwriting (copywork) practice.

Read them aloud to learn good oratory skills such as inflection, facial expression, and timing.

Memorize and recite them before an audience.

Reciting in 2011

Reciting in 2012

Here are some of the poets that we’ve studied that would be good choices for you just starting to introduce your children to poetry:

   

• Robert Louis Stevenson

A Child’s Garden of Verses  (Our favorite version is the one illustrated by Tudor)
Robert Louis Stevenson: Storyteller and Adventurer by Katharine Wilkie (biography)

• A.A. Milne

Now We Are Six
When We Were Very Young

• Eugene Field

Favorite Poems

• Walter de la Mare

Bells and Grass

• Edward Lear

• James Whitcomb Riley

My children have also enjoyed these poets, but only after we had “broken the poetry ice” with the others:

  

• Emily Dickenson

Some books about Emily’s life that we enjoyed include Emily Michael Bedard, The Mouse of Amherst by Elizabeth Spires and My Uncle Emily by Jane Yolen.

• Robert Frost

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, illustrated by Susan Jeffers

• Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Paul Revere’s Ride by Ted Rand
Hiawatha illustrated by Susan Jeffers

The following book is a wonderful introduction to poetry for a very young child. The poems are short and silly.

Busy in the Garden by George Shannon

Poetry Books to collect:

  

Poetry for Young People series  - They have these for most of the “famous” poets. They include the poet’s most child-friendly poems, along with beautiful artwork.

Childcraft, Volumes 1 and 2 - Volume 1 contains nursery rhymes and shorter poems and Vol. 2 contains longer works.

Favorite Poems, Old and New, edited by Helen Ferris – If you just want to dip your big toe into poetry with your children, this is a great one to start with. The poems are divided by subject for easy choosing.

The Best Loved Poems of the American People, edited by Hazel Felleman

By studying poetry with my children, I have come to realize that I actually enjoy it!  So far, from what we’ve studied, I’ve enjoy the poems of Robert Frost and Edgar Guest the best. I also enjoy reading the poems that my mother wrote years ago that she has entitled “Psalms of a Woman”. You can find some of them on her blog.

Is there a particular poet that you or your children enjoy reading?  If poetry is not a part of your life (whether you homeschool or not), I encourage you to check out one of the above mentioned books, choose a poem and just start reading it with your children around. You may be surprised at how much you (and they) enjoy it!

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Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
- Jean Cocteau

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For more Learning Together Tuesday posts, click HERE.

(*The above unnamed poem is “Clouds” by Christina Rossetti)

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Learning Together Tuesday: Monet

The Magpie – Claude Monet*

This week I wanted to share some of the fun things we did while studying the artist Claude Monet. Monet is a great artist to start with if you’ve never studied art before. I used to have a so-so attitude about his work, because honestly, all I ever saw of it was those very bland (to me) paintings of water lilies that always show up in medical office waiting rooms. I didn’t know that he had painted such a wide variety of subjects that I actually looking at.

Here are some of the resources that really enhanced our study of this famous artist. Perhaps they will be of benefit to you as you introduce your children to one of the masters of the Impressionist period in art.

Books

Claude Monet
Written by Nancy Nunhead

With over 90 full-color plates showing Monet’s most famous paintings and a short chapter on Monet’s life, this made this a good “spine” for our study.

Linnea in Monet’s Garden
Written by Christina Bjork

Our favorite book about Monet! When Linnea travels to Paris with her friend, Mr. Bloom, she learns much about Monet’s life, family, home and works. This living book has such an engaging story line that you hardly realize how much you’re learning along the way.

The Magical Garden of Claude Monet
Written by Laurence Anholt

Part of the Anholt’s Artists series, this book was a treat to read. The story of young Julie who gets to meet Monet in his own garden was very fun to read because Mr. Anholt interweaves some of Monet’s most famous paintings into the illustrations of his stories. I saved this book for near the end of our study to see if my children would be able to recognize the similarities of Monet’s works without me saying anything. And they actually did!

Monet
Written by Mike Venezia

Yet another winner from the “Getting To Know the World’s Greatest Artists” series. Very funny cartoons interspersed with facts about Monet’s life as well as comparison of Monet’s works with the works of his contemporaries.

Claude Monet: The Painter Who Stopped the Train
Written by P.I. Maltbie

This wonderful living book discusses the origins and creation of  Monet’s train series of paintings, which are some of his lesser-known paintings that we enjoyed studying.

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Videos

We really enjoyed the following videos as a supplement to our study of Monet.

“Claude Monet – Inventing Impresionism”
In this video, 7 year old Emma gives a delightful introduction to the artist’s life and work!

A compilation of Monet’s work set to music

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Watercolor painting:

We attempted our own versions of Monet’s most famous work “Impression: Sunrise”, using regular watercolor paints.

Abigail's version

Jonathan's version

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After using regular watercolor paints, we tried our hand at watercolor pencils, which I read were easier to work with than regular watercolor paints. We watched this tutorial before we got started.

We used Derwent brand watercolor pencils:

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Thanks for stopping by today to see what we’ve been learning! For more Learning Together Tuesday posts, click HERE.

*photo credit for The Magpie: art.com

Building a library for your child, Part 5 – Chapter books and non-fiction

Part 1 HERE
Part 2 HERE
Part 3 HERE
Part 4 HERE

         

There are so many wonderful books written for children that I only attempt to scratch the surface here with some of our favorites. Of course, our children are not very old yet and so I’m sure that my list will change over the years. As of right now, however, here are our:

Top 25 chapter books

A Little Princess – Frances Hodgson Burnett

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare – Edith Nesbit

Black Beauty – Anna Sewell

Caddie Woodlawn – Carol Ryrie Brink

Five Children and It – Edith Nesbit

Gentle Ben – Walt Morey

Heidi – Johanna Spyri

Jorli - Johanna Spyri

Lad: A Dog – Albert Payson Terhune

Misty of Chincoteague – Marguerite Henry

My Side of the Mountain (and 2 sequels) – Jean Craighead George

Pinocchio -Carlo Collodi

Strawberry Girl – Lois Lenski

Swallows and Amazons (and sequels) – Arthur Ransome

The Borrowers – Mary Norton

The Incredible Journey – Sheila Burnford

The Jungle Book – Rudyard Kipling

The Little House on the Prairie (9-book series) – Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Secret Garden- Frances Hodgson Burnett

The Swiss Family Robinson – Johann Wyss

The Wheel on the School – Meindert DeJong

The Wind in the Willows – Kenneth Graham

Twice Freed – Patricia St. John

Understood Betsy – Dorothy Canfield

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Non-Fiction

“I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated.” - Charlotte Mason

I hesitate to put the following books in a separate section, because once you draw a line of distinction between fiction (“fun”) and non-fiction (“BORING!”) in the mind of a child, it’s hard to erase it. Our library consists of lively, interesting books on all subject matters. As long as it holds the child’s interest, there should be no difference to them whether it’s fiction or non-fiction. I simply put them in categories here for ease of finding them, but they are not separated from picture books in our home.

There are thousands of boring non-fiction books for children because almost anyone can “write” a collection of facts and add nice photos. When you offer your children interesting non-fiction books early, you show them that learning new things doesn’t have to be boring and dry. Whether you home school your children or not, please make room on your shelves for great non-fiction books as well!

The following books are so engaging that they are pulled from the shelves by my children in their own free time. Some of them are out of print, but they are definitely worth seeking out, even if it’s just at your library!

Science/Nature

An Owl in the House: A Naturalist’s Diary – Bernd Heinrich

Animals Do the Strangest Things (and others- Reptiles, Fish, Birds)  - Leonora Hornblow

Archimedes and the Door of Science – Jeanne Bendick

Entomology – Ellen Doris

Greg’s Microscope – Millicent E. Selsam

Let’s Get Turtles – MillicentE. Selsam

Pagoo – Holling C. Holling

Smithsonian Backyard Collection

Smithsonian Oceanic Collection

Snowflake Bentley – Jacqueline Briggs Martin

The Burgess Bird Book for Children – Thornton Burgess

The Hole in the Tree - Jean Craighead George

The True Story of Okee the Otter - Dorothy Wisbeski (also published as Otter in the House: The Story of Okee and Okee: The Story of an Otter in the House)

The New Way Things Work – David Macaulay

Tony’s Birds -Millicent E. Selsam

National Audubon Society Regional field guides for birds, wildflowers, trees, etc. – Once you teach your children how to use a field guide, you will find them pulling them out all the time on their own when they need to satisfy their curiosity about something!

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History

“Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age.” - Charlotte Mason

Abraham Lincoln – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

Ben and Me – Robert Lawson

Boy of the Pyramids – Ruth Fosdick Jones

Buffalo Bill – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

Columbus – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

George Washington – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

Homes in the Wilderness: A Pilgrim’s Journal of Plymouth Plantation in 1620 – William Bradford, Margaret Wise Browm

Johnny Tremain – Esther Forbes

Pocohontas – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

Sam the Minuteman – Nathaniel Benchley

Seeker of Knowledge: The Man Who Deciphered Egyptian Hieroglyphs – James Rumford

Stories of the Pilgrims – Margaret Pumphrey

The Drinking Gourd: The Story of the Underground Railroad – F. N. Monjo

The Librarian Who Measured the Earth – Kathryn Lasky

The Trojan Horse: How the Greeks Won the War – Emily Little

Titanic: Lost…and Found – Judy Donnelly

Tut’s Mummy: Lost… and Found – Judy Donnelly

What’s the Big Idea, Ben Franklin? – Jean Fritz

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Music

Beethoven Lives Upstairs (book and CD) – Barbara Nichol

Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Composers – Mike Venezia

Joseph Haydn, Merry Peasant – Opal Wheeler

Mozart the Wonder Boy – Opal Wheeler

The Heroic Symphony (book and CD) – Anna Harwell Celenza

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Art

Degas and the Little Dancer (and other artist books) – Laurence Anholt

Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists series – Mike Venezia

Linnea in Monet’s Garden – Cristina Bjork

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Poetry

A Child’s Garden of Verses- Robert Louis Stevenson, illustrated by Tasha Tudor

Best Loved Poems of the American People – edited by Hazel Felleman

Favorite Poems, Old and New – edited by Helen Ferris

Now We Are Six – A.A. Milne

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening – Robert Frost, illustrated by Susan Jeffers

The Pied Piper of Hamlin – Robert Browning illustrated by Kate Greenaway

When We Were Very Young – A.A. Milne

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Geography

Deluxe Then and Now Bible Maps – by Rose Publishing

Houses and Homes – Ann Morris

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World – Marjorie Priceman

Material World: A Global Family Portrait – Peter Menzel

Minn of the Mississippi- Holling C. Holling

Paddle-to-the-Sea – Holling C. Holling

Seabird – Holling C. Holling

This is Rome (Paris,London,Venice) – Miroslav Sasek

Tree in the Trail – Holling C. Holling

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Math

A Remainder of One – Elinor Pinczes

One Hundred Hungry Ants – Elinor Pinczes

Roman Numerals – David Adler

Senefer: A Young Genius in Old Egypt- Beatrice Lumpkin

Sir Cumference and All the King’s Tens – Cindy Neuschwander

Spaghetti and Meatballs for All – Marilyn Burns

The Doorbell Rang – Pat Hutchins

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Well, I hope this series has been helpful to you as you work on building a library for your child. I’d love to hear any absolute favorites that you have found for your family as well!

For more book ideas, please revisit  my post about read-alouds, where you will find links to some wonderful book lists. Also, keep checking back for Children’s Book Monday posts on my blog and Elise’s.

Building a library for your child, Part 3 – For the very young

Part 1 HERE
Part 2 HERE

We are a reading family.

From the time our babies can sit up on their own, you will find them poring over board books. They see Daddy read. They see Mommy read. They hear stories being read aloud each evening and want to join in on the “fun”, even though they aren’t sure yet what is so interesting to everyone about those rectangular things with marks and pictures inside.

Board books

Board books have become very popular in the last decade as the idea that giving your child an “early start” on their education has gained more attention. I personally love board books for several reasons. First, because our little ones want to imitate us in our reading, the board books help to keep our “real” books safe from little hands not quite capable of turning paper pages. Second, they are wonderful for occupying the time during church services or in any kind of waiting room. Third, they give a sense of ownership to the children over the books. They are their stories and because of that, they develop more of a connection to them.

However, merely handing your child a board book will not instill a love of reading. Reading to them will! So, while our babies enjoy perusing their books on their own, we are sure to frequently read a wide range of “real” picture books to them as well.

You can read my list of our top 10 board books in a post I wrote back in 2007 – Favorite Board Books for Baby

Now, 5 years later, I can add to that list:

Jamberry – Bruce Degen

Babies – Gyo Fujikawa

I am a Bunny – Ole Risom/Richard Scarry

The Very Hungry Caterpillar – Eric Carle

Carl’s Afternoon at the Park – Alexandra Day

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Picture books

A good picture book is worth it’s weight in gold. Picture books help draw a child into the world of words. As they are captivated by the pictures in the story, they notice our fingers running along the marks at the bottom of the page. They begin to connect the picture with the marks and realize that we are deciphering what the picture means from those marks. It is the beginning of a love of reading.

A good picture book is one that tells an interesting story and entices the child to guess what the ending will be long before the last page.  It can be funny, poignant or mysterious, but it will encourage them to think.

If we had limited space and/or resources, these are the picture books that I would want to own above all others. Every one of the following books is a well-loved treasure in our family. Of course this is not an exhaustive list, but just a place to start if you are just starting to build your library. Please feel free to add your family’s favorites in the comments section so we can check them out!

Angus Lost  - Marjorie Flack

Anno’s Counting Book - Mitsumasa Anno

Bedtime forFrances – Russell Hoban

Benjamin Franklin – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

Blueberries for Sal – Robert McCloskey

Brambly Hedge books – Jill Barklem

Caps for Sale - Esphyr Slobodkina

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go – Richard Scarry

Corduroy – Don Freeman

Doctor DeSoto – William Steig

Ferdinand – Munro Leaf

George Washintgon – Edgar and Ingri D’Aulaire

If I Ran the Circus – Dr. Seuss

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? – Nancy White Carlstrom

Johnny the Clockmaker – Edward Ardizzone

Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel – Virginia Lee Burton

Owl Babies – Martin Waddell

Owl Moon – Jane Yolen

Ox-Cart Man – Donald Hall

Paddle to the Sea  - Holling C. Holling

Rain – Peter Spier

So Many Bunnies – Rick Walton

Stone Soup – retold by Marcia Brown

The Carrot Seed – Ruth Krauss

The Little House – Virginia Lee Burton

The Mitten – Jan Brett

The Monster at the End of This Book – Jon Stone

The Napping House – Don and Audrey Wood

The Quiltmaker’s Gift – Jeff Brumbeau

The Story About Ping – Marjorie Flack

Thunder Cake – Patricia Polacco

We’re Going on a Bear Hunt – Michael Rosen

Who Put the Pepper in the Pot? – Joanna Cole

Yellow and Pink – William Steig

Yonie Wondernose – Marguerite de Angeli

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Collections/Anthologies

Anthologies are an excellent way to build your home library quickly and more frugally. The following collections are some of the most raggedy and taped-up books in our library because they are pored over again and again. When we travel, these are the books that go in our bags.

Aesop’s Fables – illustrated by Milo Winter

Eloise Wilkin Stories (A Little Golden Book Treasury)

Farm Tales (A Little Golden Book Treasury)

Fifty Famous Stories Retold – James Baldwin

James Herriot’s Treasury for Children

Richard Scarry’s Best Storybook Ever!

The Great Big Treasury of Beatrix Potter

Uncle Arthur’s Bedtime Stories Vol. 1-5

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Chapter books to read aloud to pre-readers

Please don’t make the mistake of thinking that young children can’t enjoy a well-written chapter book. Reading aloud a small portion of a book each day gives the child the opportunity to dwell on the story in-between readings. It also gives you the opportunity to ask them “Where did we leave off last time?” before you start the day’s reading. This greatly increases their powers of retention.

All-of-a-Kind Family – Sydney Taylor

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory – Roald Dahl

Charlotte’s Web – E.B. White

Little House on the Prairie – Laura Ingalls Wilder

Mr. Popper’s Penguins – Richard Atwater

The House at Pooh Corner – A.A. Milne

The Trumpet of the Swan – E. B. White

Winnie the Pooh – A.A. Milne (the original, not the Disney)

Wisdom and the Millers – Mildred A. Martin

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If you only have one shelf for children’s books in your home, I highly recommend either of these series. Each set is an entire library in and of itself!

Childcraft
(read about which editions are the best  HERE)

My Book House

I sure hope that this series is helpful for someone! The reason I’m spending so much time on it is because I wish that someone would have given me some good suggestions when I first became a parent before I had to spend hours and hours researching them myself.

Next in the series: Part 4 – Books for beginning readers

Building a library for your child, Part 2 – How to find

Part One of this series HERE.

Now that you’ve decided to be intentional about providing quality reading material for your children, where can you find it?

Here are my suggestions for you if you are just starting out on this quest–

- Make the library work for you by utilizing the inter-library loan system in your county. (After all, you’re paying for the service with your taxes!)  To preview books, simply log on to your local library’s website, request a whole bunch of them at once and they’ll have a nice little pile waiting for you behind the counter in a week or so.

- Get “OK” with the idea of purchasing used books. Many of the best books for children are out of print today for various reasons.

- Shop Amazon and Abebooks. I’m not sure why, but I usually can find cheaper copies of books on Abebooks, so I’ve started to check there first!

- Learn how to work library book sales. I shared my tips for how to do this in a previous post HERE.

- Keep your eye out for books at regular garage sales, but realize that estate sales and church rummage sales (especially at older churches) are the best places to find those older, quality books. I just in the last year realized that most people now post their garage sale ads on Craigslist. By using the search tool within the “garage sale” section, you can see which ones are selling books. Also, the garage sale listings that mention “antiques” in their ad usually have old books, too.

- Form a good relationship with your local used book shop owner (or you can borrow mine! If you give Heather from Beloved Books a call with a particular book you’re looking for, if she has it, she’ll ship it to you!) Once they know what types of books you are looking for, they will often let you know when they have something you’d be interested in. I’ve found that the older and mustier the shop, the more likely you’ll find the books you’re looking for!

- Join the CM Curricula Yahoo group. Each day, many wonderful living books are posted for sale

- Check out the Living Books Library, an online used bookstore that sells living books in every subject

Next in this series: Part 3 – Board books and picture books for the young

 

Building a library for your child, Part 1 – How to choose

I often get asked about our home library, and more specifically, about the books we own for children. I’ve had friends and relatives who wonder how it is I go about choosing the books that I do, when there are so many books out there to choose from. It’s true – if you go on to Amazon and read through people’s “lists” of recommended reading for children, you will get such varied opinions that it’s almost overwhelming.

Where do you start if you want to give your children quality reading material? What if you are a grandparent wanting to give the gift of a quality book that will not be tossed aside after one reading (or one that won’t drive parents crazy if they have to read it 50 times)?

While there are books lists aplenty floating around out there on the Internet, I thought I would share some of our tried and true favorites in case you are one of those people who are just overwhelmed at the book choices out there. Maybe my own lists would be of some benefit to someone.

First of all, however, I want to say just a bit about how we choose the books the we purchase or check out of the library for our children.

Dan and I made the decision to be intentional about the books that we offer for our children to read from the very beginning. As you know, I have read and studied a great deal about education. One of my favorite educators, Charlotte Mason, used a word to describe reading material that is not healthy for a child – “twaddle”. You can read a very thorough definition of the word HERE. We try to avoid twaddle if at all possible, and instead, give our children books that are interesting, engaging, thought-provoking — in short –living books.

As parents, all of us agree that it’s not good for a child to eat junk food all the time. Once in a while, junk food is OK, but for the most part, we try to offer healthy food. The mind is no different. It needs “healthy” ideas that will nourish it and cause it to flourish.

Children are not that different from adults – they are merely inexperienced little people. They have ideas about things, too. If we don’t stifle them, they are very curious about the world and they often have just as profound questions as we adults do. They need to be taught (through books) in language that they can understand, but they do not need “dumbed down” ideas to ponder.

Good books give children ideas to “chew on” and they are interesting to both the child and the parent.

We have found that by severely limiting “twaddle” in our home from the start, our children have healthy appetites for quality books. If you don’t start out this way, it’s not impossible to get your children or grandchildren to read “good” books, but it’s going to be more difficult. Just think if you allowed your toddler to eat Oreos and milk for breakfast for the first 3 years of life. If you were to expect him to all of the sudden start eating scrambled eggs, whole wheat toast and fruit when he gets to elementary school age, you would have a very difficult time managing it, I think.

If you ever visit the children’s area in a public library, you probably have noticed the vast amount of twaddle and junk that is available. That’s because they only keep the books that people check out frequently, and these days the books that are the most popular are often the ones based on TV/movie characters or feature less-than-admirable sibling/parent/peer relationships that children (unfortunately) can relate to. The “classics” often find their way into the library book sales.

So, you have to be a bit more pro-active if you want to build a quality library for your child. When we started building our home library, I consulted many book recommendations from moms that I trust. Also, I tried to first check out each book from the library for myself before purchasing it. If it held my interest and the children’s, then it went onto my “Book Wish List”.

Next in the series: Part 2 – How to find quality books to build your library

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The children must enjoy the book. The ideas it holds must each make that sudden, delightful impact upon their minds, must cause that intellectual stir, which mark the inception of an idea.
-Charlotte Mason

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Related article: Choosing Books Like a Connoisseur