podoba01 Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 This is a spin-off to some other posts I started. I noticed a lot of you suggest purchasing good books to use in your home library. What books (fiction or nonfiction) do you and/or your children use frequently? I would think the WTM would be an obvious choice on this forum :001_smile:, but what about encyclopedias/dictionaries, read-alouds or other works of fiction that you or your children read over and over, books that have influenced you as a parent/homeschooler that you review frequently, and well, you get the idea! I use the 1000 Good Books list, All Through the Ages, and the Sonlight catalogs as a guide for our library trips, but it's always nice to hear what you love so much! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KristenR Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 We've been doing a prehistory unit here for awhile and currently my dd's favorite book is The Complete Guide to Prehistoric Life. It's a fun supplement to all the "Walking With" and "Chased by Dinosuars" series that you can stream off of Netflix. The pictures are literally taken from scenes from the movies. It's really a fun book. I love The Elements by Theodore Grey and can't wait till my kids are bit older to appreciate this one more. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Down_the_Rabbit_Hole Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 The Apologia Elementary books are great for the information. Not exactly field guides but can be put in your home library next to the guides. I know ours are pulled off the shelf constantly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Kingfisher History Encyclopedia Webster's American Family Dictionary America Heritage Student Thesaurus National Geographic Student Atlas of the World Math on Call set of World Book Encyclopedias we picked up from the library's annual book giveaway DK Universe: The Definitive Visual Guide DK Earth: The Definitive Visual Guide Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mom-ninja. Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My boys love the Usborne World History They read it for fun. They also like any cutaway books. They'll sit with those books for hours. Then there is our large collection of Dr. Seuss books. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Susie in CA Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My boys have read the Internet-Linked World History by Usborne over and over. It is falling apart. They also have read all of our Greek Myths books several times. They still do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
warriormom Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 The Child's Book of Virtues The 20th century story book collection Dr. Seus anything The Beatrix Potter Collection Eric Carle anything Richard Scarry anything As you can tell, I have younger kids. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kalanamak Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 The dictionary. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoVanGogh Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Many of the books mentioned above: dictionary, Usborne encyclopedia, NG world atlas, etc. In addition, I have two guides to literary terms that I use quite often. Dictionary of Literary Terms and Literary Theory Guide to Literary Terms (Royal Fireworks Press) I love both equally so often read from both, when needed. We also have a full set of encyclopedias. I know. So dated. But they are great for spurring interest or last-minute research topics. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Farrar Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 The atlas. Usborne Science Encyclopedia. Other than that, it's all pleasure reading... but of those... The Lego Ideas Book You Can Cook Fun Food Also some fiction books - Elephant and Piggie, Fly Guy, Bone... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagira Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 This is a spin-off to some other posts I started. I noticed a lot of you suggest purchasing good books to use in your home library. What books (fiction or nonfiction) do you and/or your children use frequently? I would think the WTM would be an obvious choice on this forum :001_smile:, but what about encyclopedias/dictionaries, read-alouds or other works of fiction that you or your children read over and over, books that have influenced you as a parent/homeschooler that you review frequently, and well, you get the idea! I use the 1000 Good Books list, All Through the Ages, and the Sonlight catalogs as a guide for our library trips, but it's always nice to hear what you love so much! I'm in the middle of these books right now, and they have and continue to influence my homeschool enormously: CM's Original Homeschooling Series When Children Love to Learn Teaching Children The Well Trained Mind Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alisoncooks Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My girls (5 and 3) love love LOVE all of our DK First Encyclopedias. We have the First Nature, Animals, Human Body, and a few others. We also have a ton of other similar books (Usborne Look inside your body, etc) - our own little reference shelf. :D The pictures are great, they're perfect for these early years. Mine particularly like to take them when we have road trips: lots of pics to entertain them for hours! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
podoba01 Posted April 5, 2012 Author Share Posted April 5, 2012 :lurk5: I'm looking for more ideas! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
slackermom Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Not a book, but we get a lot of use out of our globe. Same here. DD used it so much it came off the stand (repeatedly), so now I keep it in a round basket on our kitchen table (to keep it from rolling away). It makes it much easier to examine Antarctica closely. :D We also use our 4" thick unabridged dictionary almost every day. A few other favorites: Oxford Atlas of World History Usborne illustrated math dictionaries Basher books (Chemistry, Periodic Table, etc.) DK's How the Incredible Human Body Works Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
maizeydaizey Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Usborne Science Encyclopedia Usborne Art Treasury Usborne Complete Book of Art Ideas Many dinosaur books Field Guides Handbook of Nature Study The Practical Naturalist Keeping A Nature Journal Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In2why Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My boys have read the Internet-Linked World History by Usborne over and over. It is falling apart.They also have read all of our Greek Myths books several times. They still do. We must have the same boys. Mine use Usbornes Internet linked World history and their Science constantly. They also love D's auleris Greek Mythology. Our Thesaurus gets a decent workout by my older. As for book books. Dr. Seuss Little Bear Beatrix Potter D Aulaires (most of them) Aesop Fables The Narnia collection Any time I went to the thrift store I took a book list so I own quite a few of "classics" as well as most of the Time warp Trios, Horrible Histories, any Hardy Boys I can find. I also bought lots of the Magic School Bus series. Oh and all the Janice Van Cleave science books. I own 5 Or 6 of them and they are our go to science experiments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In2why Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Not a book, but we get a lot of use out of our globe. Yes! We use the globe almost daily. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Medieval Mom Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Field guides get daily use here. Dictionary and rhyming dictionary. Holling C. Holling books have been read numerous times. Last year, I would have said the Thornton Burgess books, which ds read over and over for two years... at least! This year, it's Redwall... Golden Children's Bible Richard Scarry's Best Storybook Ever has seen constant use for 8 years. I've had to tape the spine more than once. Andrew Lang's Fairy books. Beatrix Potter. d'aulaires Greek Myths and Norse Myths. James Herriot's Treasury. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
garddwr Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 We also have a set of World Book encyclopedias from a library sale, and my kids page through them all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Not all of these are necessarily schoolish, but here are some of the books my kids read over and over. I think they've probably read some of them 50+ times. If You books (If You Lived During the American Revolution, etc. That might not be the exact title) Let's Read and Find Out science books D'Aulaire's book of Greek Myths Usborne World History Horrible Histories Sisters Grimm books The Penderwicks books Beverly Cleary books, especially Ramona books Roald Dahl books Lightning Thief books Calvin & Hobbes books Harry Potter books Many individual historical fiction titles, like Bound for Oregon A Human Body Encyclopedia (actually we have 2 different ones that are used a lot) A Geography Encyclopedia A History of US (yes, individual volumes are pulled off the shelf and read for fun) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Anne in CA Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 My kids have reread Tales from India, Tales from China, Tales from Japan, Tales from Egypt over and over, they have been a good investment. The are deep, so kids can get multiple levels of meaning out of them as they get older. Also, the Usborne science books for the younger years are so good at explaining concepts, with good pictures that my kids have gone back to them for help understanding things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
angela in ohio Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 I'll go through our reference shelf.... Books that see the most use: the encyclopedia set (World Book) the atlas (we actually have 5-6 of them of different levels/scopes - the Answer Atlas is particularly useful) dictionary Synonym Finder (thesaurus) English handbooks (Scott-Foresman, Write Source, etc.) For my high school students, Well-Educated Mind, HTRAB, and Invitation to the Classics, as well as the timeline book, are popular, as well as the MLA handbook. For little guy, he goes back to the Usborne big science encyclopedia and the DK history encyclopedia over and over again. All of my dd love reading the World Almanac for some reason, too, and look things up in that frequently. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
podoba01 Posted April 5, 2012 Author Share Posted April 5, 2012 Another book I think is totally awesome and valuable (and I wish I had known about it when my kids were 4) is Kitchen Table Math. So far I have read only book 1. This would be the perfect time for you to read it. Thank you! I will look into this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chelli Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 The books that are pulled off our shelf the most are nonfiction: Basher books and my old set of Childcraft Encyclopedias that I had as a girl. This is the first volume in the set I have. My two daughters look through these two things ALL THE TIME! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrself Posted April 5, 2012 Share Posted April 5, 2012 Another one I haven't seen mentioned is a historical atlas. We have this one and love it.http://www.amazon.com/Kingfisher-Atlas-World-History-10000BCE-present/dp/0753463881/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333661285&sr=1-1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALB Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Let's Read and Find Out science books Usborne Stories from Around the World Beatrix Potter collection Winnie the Pooh Thornton Burgess collection Any by Robert McCloskey, Virginia Lee Burton, Patricia Polacco, Tomie DePaola Richard Scarry Usborne "My First Encyclopedia of..." titles Getting to Know the World's Greatest Artists series atlas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sagira Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Not a book, but we get a lot of use out of our globe. I love using the globe, but so far ds is enamored with Google Earth. He loves playing with it and looking up places we read about. Reference book we use often: American Heritage Children's Dictionary (6-8 grade; we couldn't find many if the words ds was encountering in his elementary dictionary) Other books I use to help me teach: Natural Speller Critical Conditioning Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Twigs Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 dictioinary and atlas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ecclecticmum Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 A dictorionary called "A First Dictionary" meant for elementary students. I saw it at a charity shop and immediately grabbed it. Its the same one I used when I was in primary. Its small enough to fit into a little tiny bag, carry around a lot, and for when I need to explain the definition of something and am not quite sure how to explain it to the kids, I grab that (I find the dictionary you get from google, tends to end up having another word they don't understand in the definition lol, so we could end up on a major rabbit trail if we used that as our basis. Walter the Farting Dog - LOL! My kids are still all in the stage where bodily movements are completely fascinating so we have a couple of the Water the farting dog books, and Zoo Poo. Children Just Like Me - I actually have 2 copies of this. 1. so that I can read it out easily whilst they have the other copy and look at that and 2. Because they love it soo much, So I have one copy that stays on my reference shelf, so as not to get damaged, and the other they are aloud to read at will. Any of the internet-linked encyclopedias Classics like House at Pooh Corner, Charlottes Web etc These get read over and over again. Roald Dahl Books - I find reading these tend to make the kids find reading interesting, so its an author I love to use here. They can see that books can even be funny & silly, with lots of words for things like "disgusting" (dispicable, horrible, filthy, nasty etc). Poetry Books - We get the little summary "best works of" books. I read it out slowly, and then we discuss what the kids think the poem means. Other than those I can't really see particular things being used over and over, as all of their books are read over and over, if they aren't then they are donated, we don't keep unused books around as we don't have the room. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crimson Wife Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Just thought of another one: The Story of Painting by Sr. Wendy Beckett. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foxbridgeacademy Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 We really like Oxfords "World in Ancient Times", and "The Encyclopedia: A Complete Visual Guide". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
violingirl Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 The atlas The New Way Things Work The LEGO idea book the many animal encyclopedias and books we've collected in the last few years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Missouri Okie Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Something that hasn't been mentioned is the Draw Write Now Series. I bought the box set last year. I initially regretted the purchase because it isn't cheap. But, these my kids use them all the time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
happyWImom Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Not a book, but we get a lot of use out of our globe. Especially the Geosafari Globe-my dc are playing with it right now! Also, our maps. My dc love animals, so DK Encyclopedia of Animals Complete Book of Animals Animal Atlas Peterson Guides & Golden Guides (insects,wildflowers,amphibians,rocks & minerals,you name it!) Encyclopedias Magic Treehouse Series w/fact books. My ds has read these over & over & over, and learned tons of facts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
In2why Posted April 6, 2012 Share Posted April 6, 2012 Another book we love....Cave Paintings to Picasso. Probably our favorite book on the history of art, and the kids love to match it up to our history cycle. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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