Please sing along with me:
(Sung to the tune of Oh Where oh Where has my Little Dog Gone?)
Oh where, oh where is the UPS man?
Oh where, oh where can he be?!
With the big box of books for our new school year…
Oh where, oh where can he be?
Thank you, you have so much musical talent. That was lovely.
That’s our theme song right now. We can’t help it. Every year right after I place our big curriculum order, we start listening for the UPS truck. Like obssessed people. Because we LOVE it when our books come in!! It’s almost better than Christmas!
So, let me tell you just a bit about our order (because while I’m waiting for the UPS man, I have to at least talk about my books)…
We order most of our school books through Rainbow Resource…because they have excellent prices for just about everything you could possibly ever need for school, ever. Plus they offer free shipping for any order over $150. I also order books through Amazon if I can find them cheaper there.
We choose our books based on what Sonlight Curriculum recommends. They are very literature based…so we get to read many, many wonderful books together to learn more about the Bible, History and Science.
Here’s what we’ll be reading for History (we’re focussing more on World History this year) and Geography:
A Child’s History of the World
The Story of the World: Ancient Times
The Story of the World: Middle Ages
Time Traveller
People of the World
Ships, Sailors and the Sea
100 Gateway Cities
For Science we’ll be learning about electricity and magnetism…and about how things are made. The boys are especially excited about this.
Usborne Elecricity and Magnetism
Usborne How Things Work
Usborne Book of the Microscope
Light and Color
Diary of an Early American Boy
For Bible lessons, along with simply reading from the Bible, we’ll read through Egermier’s Bible Story Book…work on memorizing verses and work on godly character training.
For Math, the younger boys use Miquon…and we LOVE it. It’s kind of a backward way of learning math, and it doesn’t work for everyone, but our boys have done well with it.
This year for Asa, we bit the bullet (what a weird figure of speech…I would never put a bullet in my mouth and bite it). Anyway, Teaching Textbooks was recommended to me and after checking into it, I thought it looked great. So, that is what Asa will be doing for math. Thankfully, all of the other boys will eventually use it too…so that makes me feel better about biting…that bullet.
For Reading, each of the boys have a list of books to read either on their own, or to a parent.
Elias:
Bob Books (great set of bunches of little readers)
The Fire Cat
The Bravest Dog Ever
Greg’s Microscope
A Big Ball of String
Little Bear
The Cat in the Hat
Justus:
The Sword in the Tree
The House on Walenska Street
Jake Drake: Bully Buster
Keep the Lights Burning Abbie
The Littles
Long Way to a New Land
Lon Way Westward
Viking Adventure
Third Grade Detectives (series)
Along came a Dog
Frindle
Mustang: Spirit of the West
Shadrach
The Whipping Boy
Asa:
Adam of the Road
Archimedes and the Door of Science
The Bedwins Gazelle
The Bronze Bow
Catherine Called Birdy
Luther: Biography of a Reformer
Detectives in Togas
Mystery of the Roman Ransom
The Phantom Tollbooth
The Samarai’s Tale
Matt and I will also read the following books to the boys altogether:
Island of the Blue Dolphins
Little Britches
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry
Diary of a Worm
Johnny Tremain
Calico Bush
Justin morgan Had a Horse
Sign of the Beaver
Toliver’s Secret
Mr. Popper’s Penguins
Mountain Born
Homer Price
Cheaper by the Dozen
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Wow…looks like we’ve got our work cut out for us. Except it doesn’t feel like work…it feels like READING! And if we don’t get them all read this school year, we’ll carry them over to the next. (And by the way…I didn’t have to order ALL of these books this year. We have quite a few of them already. Otherwise I would TOTALLY be over-budget!)
Coming up in Homeschool Hubbub: I’ll share more about what we do for Language Arts, what our schedule looks like…and after the UPS man brings our books…I’ll show you pictures of the excitement!!
Oh where, oh where is the UPS man…..
I love the books you have on your “read together” list! It’s full of some of my favorites! We really like the Usborne books, too. My mom works at a store that sells them, so we are blessed with Usborne books from Nana. :)
Great lists- thanks!
Blessings,
Michele :)
Love your list! Especially The Cat and the Hat! :-)
Love those Usborne books–they’re just so pretty!
2 of my guys read Johnny Tremain last year.
That’s awesome that you both read to the boys! My older kids think its silly that I read to them sometimes,lol.
Ever read Pilgrim’s Progress to your kids? I was very surprised at how well mine loved it and followed along a couple of years ago.
I can’t wait to see pics of the fun after the UPS guy comes! Who needs a Santa when there’s a UPS man?!?! ;-)
Wow. I homeschooled my son for kindergarten (he’s in 6th grade now) and used Sonlight materials. I LOVED getting the box. My kids don’t live with me anymore (cept during the summer) but I’d homeschool myself if I could afford it…to get the box and read the stuff. Is there a way to just take the classes for fun? lol
Hope the box gets there soon!
We’ve done alot of Sonlight so have read most of these! Child’s History of the World is one my all time favorites! I already have most of our books for this year because our older kids did them years ago. But I need to order Level 100…I tyhi9nk. I am undecided still but I need to get crackin’ and make up my mind!
I know you don’t have cable, but on The Discovery Channel and on National Geographic, I think, also, they have shows on how things are made — all kinds of things from machines to cars to consumer products (of course, my favorite is Unwrapped! on the Food Network, but we won’t go there this time…hee hee).
Anyway, you can probably find most of their stuff on YouTube or on the channel’s website if you’re interested. I have an AWESOME video (shot in the plant I used to work in) on how ice cream is made, if you’re ever interested in that.
That science stuff is right up my alley! =)
Ohhhhh sounds like soooo much fun!!
Last night after my kids were in bed I was working on getting their reading lists in order. I put several books on hold at the library to check out and read to start our school year in a couple of weeks.
I am also working out what we will be doing for our other subjects. I can’t believe that I will schooling a 7th, 5th, 3rd and Kdg. this year!! Oh I must be crazy!! Thankfully my oldest is a self-learner so I don’t have to do too much teaching with him. :)
Hope your UPS man comes soon!
oh I absolutely LOVED “Island of the Blue Dolphins”! I need to get that book and read it again.
What a great list of books! We use Sonlight for our 4th grader and My Father’s World for our Kndg & Pre-k kids. I am still getting everything together. It is so exciting. Looks like we will be doing the same science this year. I buy most of my stuff used on E-bay. You can get such a great deal there. We just don’t have it in the budget to buy everything brand new. besides, it’s new to us!!
I know how exciting waiting for those packages can be! We are waiting for ours and it says it should be here today, but it is way past time for the UPS man to come. So I’m a little worried we will have to wait until Monday!
Have fun with your books!!!
love mr popper’s penguins! read that last year. i love our UPS man and USPS mail carrier too;)
OOO such a list is making me JEALOUS! I’m wishing I had a good book in my grubby little hands!
If I remember right, the phrase “bite the bullet” comes from back when they did medical procedures out on the battlefield… They often didn’t have any kind of anasthetics so they would give a soldier a bullet to bite down on before they amputated a limb or did whatever else they had to do…
Just a random guest contemplating homeschool for my boys one day in the future – but this entry got me so excited! I love to read, and so does my two year old. I’ve been on the fence about homeschool, but just looking at your reading list inspired me about what possibilities it holds! Good luck this year!
What made you choose teaching textbooks? I know saxon has cd that go w/the books also.
I looked on the Teaching Textbook website and really, really liked what I saw. My son did a sample lesson and it worked very well with his learning style. It was like having a tutor right there with him. Plus I’ve heard great things about it from others who’ve used it.