Heavenly Homemakers

Encouraging women in homemaking, healthy eating and parenting

Some Of Our Favorite Books

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This post was originally posted in October, 2013. Our kids are older now but this list of books is still our favorite!

Books, books, the magical fruit. The more you read, the more you…

Oh wait. Wrong poem.  Sometimes I get confused. Although I’m sure if I threw that poem starter out to my boys, they’d be sure to finish it with something creative. And by creative, I mean gross.

I am excited to share that all four of our boys are now all independent readers. It was a little slow in coming for our youngest, who is now a 3rd grader. But late this summer, it all clicked for him. He now loves reading! Last week he said, “I can’t believe math used to be my favorite. Now reading is so much fun!” Awesome – just what I love to hear. (Although you still have to do your math, Buddy.)

malachi_reading

Our Family’s Favorite Books

Boxcar Children Books
These books were some of my favorites when I was little. (You know I had my very own boxcar, right? Okay, it wasn’t my very own. I shared it with my cousins.)  All of our boys have loved the Boxcar Children books, and now I am reading them to Malachi (age 8). Elias (age 11) has already read most of these books, but sits in to listen when he can, because who can resist?

boxcar_children

Ralph Moody Books

We read through most of the books in this series (as a family) a year ago, and now I’m having my two older boys read the last few on their own. What I love most about these books is that they show how important it is to be a hard worker, how much fun it can be to work together as a family, and how if you put your mind to it – you can always find a way to provide. I am so inspired by these books, and my boys love the adventure aspect they include.

Books by Clyde Robert Bulla

These are the first chapter books our boys have read. We have about eight of them on Malachi’s shelf this year – and he’s made his way through two of them already. I love that Clyde Robert Bulla keeps his vocabulary simple and easy to read – all while teaching history and making his books fun and intriguing. When I pulled these books out for Malachi, all three of his brothers said, “Oh, he gets to read those this year? Malachi, you will love them.” I love hearing the boys talk together about books they’ve all read.

clyde_robert_bulla

Ramona the Pest Series

Malachi pulled his first Ramona book off the shelf this year, too. So far he’s loving it, just like his brothers did. I read this series several times when I was younger. It’s so much fun re-reading these books with my kids.

ramona_2

Christian Heroes Books

I can’t say enough good about all of the Christian Heroes: Then and Now books by Janet and Geoff Benge. We’ve actually decided to use about 15 of these books this year to go along with our History/Geography studies with Justus, Elias, and Malachi. What better way to study the culture and history of a country than to learn about missionaries who worked there? These books are so well written and inspiring!

I also have to share that as we reach the end of each book, Justus (age 13) likes to point out, “You know Mom, this is the chapter when the missionary dies and you cry.” Pshaw.  Okay, fine. So I cry at the end of all of these (and the Ralph Moody Books, and just about every other book I read aloud to the boys). I can’t help it.

benge

In addition to these sets of books, our three older boys are all reading lots of books from the Sonlight reading lists for their grade level. Asa (a junior in high school) is reading some Shakespeare, C.S. Lewis, The Hiding Place (you MUST read this!), and quite a few others Sonlight recommends.

What books are you and your kids reading these days?  I know I’m not the only mom who cries at the end of a good book. Help me out here – do you get choked up when you’re reading books to your kids?

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School Room Clean-Up, School Supply Shopping, and a Trip Down Memory Lane…

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It is a tradition we’ve had with our family for years. Each year, after I’ve planned our school curriculum and schedule for the year, I make each boy a list of the supplies he will need. We then head out to do our shopping. This has always helped get the boys excited for the school year to start. And then, to make the day extra special, we go out for lunch together.

Except for the “going out for lunch together” part, I wasn’t really sure how interested they would be this year in our school shopping tradition. Asa is 15, after all. He doesn’t really need crayons anymore. :)  And actually, none of the boys really needed much. We’ve purchased so many 20¢ glue sticks in past years that there was no need to add those to any list. So, instead of individual lists, I came up with a general list of what we’d need, and off we went. Sweet boys that they are, they were all super excited about our outing. (That settles it. We are totally keeping this tradition until all of them head to college, and even after that if I can get away with it. Wow, I love these kids. And I refuse to think about them going to college. It’s only three years away for Asa. STOP. I’m not going to think about it.)

Here we were yesterday, taking our traditional “picking out supplies” picture.

And now, would you like to join me for a little tour through the years? I can’t believe how much they’ve grown. I decided to go backwards, so here they are last year, 2011:

2010 (we had and extra friend with us that year) :

school_shopping_10

2009:

buyingschoolsupplies09sm

And oh my…2008. Will you just look at these sweet babies:

shoppinglunch3sm.JPG

And now, Asa stands almost six feet tall and speaks with a man voice. It’s unbelievable really. Did I mention that I love these kids? Allow me to wipe my eyes and blow my nose loudly while I move on with this post…

Edited to add our 2013-2014 picture:

0802131233

Before heading out yesterday for our outing, we de-cluttered the school room as well as we could. (Some of our upstairs rooms are under construction, so we have extra furniture in the school room for the time being. Therefore, I just took a picture of our very messy, piled high table. All through last year, as we finished with books, instead of being good and putting them where they went, it seems we just continued to pile them on the table. Lovely, huh?

And now…

I’m hoping to do a better job of putting books back on shelves this year. It’s not like it’s hard, you know?

Stay tuned for more updates on what I’m checking off of my Fall Preparation “to-do” list!

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Our 2011-2012 School Year Schedule

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If you’ve been reading here long, you know that I keep a very loose schedule during our school days. I like to have a general routine in place, but just about every day looks different depending on the needs of the moment.

For instance, this week our family is helping with our local Meals-on-Wheels. Matt’s been taking two boys with him each morning. We’re just rearranging the schedule a little bit to make this happen. We want our boys to understand that serving others comes first (and that they still have to get the school work done later!).

As is our tradition, we hit the store last week to purchase a few school supplies, then went out for lunch.
We’ve had this before-school tradition for at least seven years and we look forward to this treat every year!

Here, without any specific hour of the day assigned to each line item (because it truly is different each day), is what I’ve outlined for our routine this year. (Read the specifics about the curriculum we’ll be using here.)

1. I wake up first in our household. After beginning my morning with prayer and Bible reading, I use this quiet time to check email and do website work. (one hour)

2. The boys wake up and spend time reading their Bibles while I fix breakfast. (20 minutes)

3. We eat breakfast together and during this time, I read the Bible and a devotional book to everyone. (We’re reading through the book of Matthew and More Than a Carpenter, by Josh McDowell right now.)  We work together to clean up the kitchen. (one hour)

4. Asa, Justus and Elias begin working through their assigned school lessons – doing what they can do on their own (math, English, etc.). I work with Malachi on reading, phonics and math. (one hour)

5. I read History/Geography to Justus and Elias. Malachi does individual work (if possible) or plays legos. Asa continues to work on his own. (30 minutes)

6. Justus and Elias work together on their History/Geography projects (Eastern Hemisphere Explorer, adapted from Sonlight). I read History with Asa (mostly because I want to learn myself!). Malachi does puzzles or magnetics. (45 minutes)

Malachi had a great time working on these Three-Letter Words Puzzle Cards today.
I highly recommend them if you have a beginning reader. I think I got them at Walmart,
but linked them to Amazon if that’s easier for you, and so that you could see what I was talking about.

7. Matt does Spelling with Justus and Elias, then works with Asa on Science, Spelling and/or Spanish (depending on the day). Malachi is assigned to work in his Explode the Code books. I check email and take care of any pressing website work, then I work on fixing lunch. (one hour)

8. Lunchtime! Matt leads us through Bible memory work. While we eat, I read a read aloud. (I eat a little faster than my kids, by the way. That’s why I’m able to read while we have meals. Plus, this helps mealtime be a little more…calm.)  ;)

9. I read Science to Justus, Elias and Malachi, then they work on their Science Animal Project, with help from me as needed. Asa works on his own. (30 minutes)

10. Justus and Elias have their reading time. Asa works on his own. I read to Malachi. (30 minutes)

11. Everyone finishes their assignments for the day and works together to put away books and tidy up the house. (however long this takes)

12. Downtime, Curious George time, trampoline time, mess the house back up time – for the boys. I try to get some writing done or answer emails. (2-3 hours)

13. Work together to make dinner, then eat together. We visit or read aloud while we eat.

14. Evening times look different every day depending on whether we have company, soccer games, Bible class or a free evening. Bedtime is therefore flexible, but always includes family prayer time and sometimes more reading aloud.

15. After the boys are tucked in, I do more website work while Matt gets any work done that he needs to do.

Here are all of my past home school posts if you’d like to read through them to learn more about how this works for us!

I’ll be sure to let you know if ever a day actually goes exactly according to schedule. Don’t get your hopes up.

Do you like to keep to a strict schedule each day, or do you hold a loose routine like we do?

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What We’re Studying This Year (Unless You’re More Interested in Chocolate)

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I realize that some of you won’t be interested in reading about our curriculum choices for this year, but since I continually receive emails from gals asking about what books we like to use in our home school, I’m going to go ahead and share our list. If looking at our book list isn’t exciting to you, perhaps you would like to take a look at our Death By Chocolate recipe? Or maybe many of you will be interested in both? Because chocolate and books – aren’t those just two of the finest creations on the planet?

Once I finally got all of our books organized, I decided to take a picture of our shelf. Enjoy it now – that shelf won’t look so organized after we start digging in. But we can pretend that it stays pretty like this. ;)

The top shelf is Asa’s (grade 9), the middle shelf belongs to Justus and Elias (grades 6 and 4) and the bottom shelf is Malachi’s (grade 1).

We’ve been schooling with Sonlight curriculum for all nine of our home schooling years – yes this begins our tenth! We love that Sonlight is literature based and that we are able to explore and learn without using textbooks. Instead, we read both fiction and non-fiction books as we work our way through History, Science, Geography and Bible. In addition, we choose what Sonlight recommends for Readers (kids reading on their own) as well as Read-Alouds (parents reading to the kids).

Here is a breakdown of our curriculum for this year:

Asa (grade 9)

Justus (grade 6) and Elias (grade 4)

Malachi (grade 1)

Next, I’ll share about our home school schedule for this year – stay tuned!

I’d love to know what your kids will be studying this year (whether you home school or not!). Also, I need to know which you like better:  Books or Chocolate?

I know, that is hardly a fair question. (And yes, your answer can be “chocolate with a side of books”).

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Our Favorite Books This Year (and what we’re reading this summer)

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I say this every year, so I just wouldn’t dream of let you down by failing to repeat myself. I must say it again:  This has been my favorite year of home schooling so far! (Just pretend you’ve never heard me say that before.)  Either the books keep getting better or I keep forgetting how good the other books were or I just like one-upping myself. Either way, our family had a great year of reading and learning.

If you’re new here, you may want to go back and read my Homeschool Hubbub posts to learn more about how school happens (or tries to happen) at our house, and to learn about our curriculum of choice.

I want to share with you my favorite pile of books for this year so that if you haven’t read them yet, you can look them up, and if you have read them already you can say, “I KNOW, that IS an awesome book! I’m not posting all the books we read, and that doesn’t mean I didn’t like all of them, these were just my very favorites. Here they are in no particular order (because by the end of our school year, our book shelf is not at all organized!):

The Great Turkey Walk, by Kathleen Karr

We read this book as a family and got a big kick out of this adventure. I love books that crack you up and make you think all at the same time.

 

Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor

We also read this book as a family. Our kids were able to understand better the turmoil in the U.S. that was still going on years after the Civil War. Fantastic book.

 

The Journeyman, by Elizabeth Yates

 

Elizabeth Yates is an awesome writer, helping the reader fit right into the shoes of the main character all while teaching important facts of history. I never knew what a journeyman was before this. We learned about that and so much more.

Mountain Born, by Elizabeth  Yates

Another great one by Elizabeth Yates! This book was absolutely precious. Our boys could completely relate to the main character in this book, as the story was told through his point of view. This was one of those that I choked up at several times while reading it out loud. My boys love it when I do that {cough}.

Helen Keller, by Margaret Davidson

Justus and Elias declared this to be one of their favorite readers this year. They found it so interesting they could barely put it down. That rarely happens for my boys. (It’s usually pretty easy for them to put a book down and start kicking a ball instead.)  I love the understanding they gained and the inspiration they felt by reading Helen Keller’s story.

Indian Captive, by Lois Lenski

Wow, this book still haunts me and I can’t imagine that this “happened in real life”. And yet, what a story of love and courage. You’ve gotta read it. (Our eighth grader read this on his own – I read it too. I wouldn’t recommend it for younger grades. There’s a lot to chew on in this book.)

 

Out of the Dust, by Karen Hesse

This was another book our eighth grader read this year. I believe he read it in two days…I read it in one. It is incredibly written and heart jolting. And obviously, hard to put down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Story of US, by Joy Hakim

Asa (8th grade) and I read through this series during the year as a part of his history program. I’ve mentioned it before, and I’ll say it again:  Never did I know that studying history could be so intriguing. Joy Hakim is a fantastic writer. These books were so simple to understand and taught us so much. I recommend this series as a great set of books to have on your shelves to read and re-read through the years.

 

Books we’ll be reading this summer (this of course is not an exhaustive list, just some I’d really like to read through with the kids):

  • Tell Me the Secrets, Treasures for Eternity, by Max Lucado and Ron DiCianni
  • Missionary Books by Dave and Neta Jackson (someone gave us a nice set of these and I can’t wait to read through them with the boys!)
  • The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles (again, someone gave us several of these books, which are historical fiction and perfect for my boys’ interests)
  • By the Great Horn Spoon, by Sid Fleischman

What have been some of your favorite books you’ve read during the past few months? Are you reading anything exciting this summer that I should add to my list?! :)

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