Another option for a narrative history read aloud spine is the Guerber/Miller series. My oldest does history on her own (12), but the 9, 7, and 4-year old all listen to a chapter. 9-yo illustrates and writes her own narration. 7-yo illustrates and dictates a narration that I scribe for her. They both have a half lined half blank composition book. It is simple and it gets done. I also have three younger than them :).

I said 'awesome' three times in my post. LOL!

We are 6 weeks in. We mixed things up this year a bit...with great success! Our hits: The usual suspects (CLE/ACE always get it done around here) GSWL, we haven't officially started this, but it's getting pecked at Adam to Us is DD1's favorite! It will be beautiful once it goes to print EIW DD1 likes the video instruction History read alouds for 7&9 year olds! I finally found a narrative history series I can get behind. We are reading The Story of the Ancient World by Guerber/Miller and narrating into composition books for their own illustrated/dictated/written history books. It's awesome :). Our beefed up together time. It's awesome. It got done pretty consistently for 6 weeks!! We sang hymns, did all our memory work, finally did music appreciation, art appreciation, character and manners, cultural literacy read alouds...it was so awesome. The kids even had fun most of the time 😉. Misses Well, not a super big fan of Teach Your Student Non-Fiction (or whatever it's called), but we are still doing it. I'm going to try a different manners book than the one we were using. Trying one by the guy who wrote Ferdinand (Munroe?) So, all in all, it's been a sweet year so far! Our daily rhythm is working well too 😄!

And I'm looking for classic versions...:/ One version of Jack we had to discard, it was just....weird.

Usborne's 100 Illustrated Stories? http://www.amazon.com/One-Hundred-Illustrated-Stories-Collection/dp/1409550362/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top?ie=UTF8 Looks promising.

We have an illustrated Grimm, but I'd love to have a one volume illustrated 'other stories' collection. It should include stories like Goldilocks, Jack, Ugly Duckling, etc. Do you have a favorite to recommend for me?

We have most of VT on the shelves. It falls into character training/biographies for us, not kid-lit per say :). They are falling apart over time though.

I just fills up another BIG box off the shelves. Fun...and somewhat scary times. Books are my weakness. Some of these are really nice and like new, but just not stuff we reach for. Salvation Army. Ho! That makes three boxes of books, two garbage bags of baby clothes and blankets, and two big rubbermaids full of toys and board books ready to go out the door. Where does all this stuff come from? And I still have so much.

Thanks for chiming in! No, those are just our STORY books :). Poetry is a different category (we do have Where the Sidewalk Ends) :). Thanks for the suggestions. I'll check some of them out! I'm odd, but I don't dig Sendak. ;)

Treasuries are definitely unwieldly for little hands, but I find once my children are actually reading, they spend most of their time with chapter books. I use the picture books the most, and treasuries take up less space (for us) and...this sounds bad...are harder to lose on the shelf. 😨 Those skinny minny picture books! Golden Books are the WORST!

Thank you all!

I buy good condition hardcovers and library bindings used whenever possible. So much better than a new paperback.

Here we go with picture books! Share your list too! I went with 40 or so...and lots are treasuries ;). I love treasuries! *means I need to buy it for my plan to work. *R means I need a replacement copy soon. *4 Seuss/Eastman Treasuries to consolidate our individual titles *5 Little Golden Book Treasuries for consolidation (particularly the ones including The Poky Little Puppy and The Color Kittens) James Herriot for Children Harper Collins Treasury 20th Century Treasury *Beatrix Potter Treasury (to consolidate all our little white and green books) A Grimm's collection A nursery rhymes collection A common folk tales/Anderson/Chaucer type collection (any suggestions?) *Munsch Grand Treasury *Thomas Treasury (up and coming boys) *Frances Treasury *Amelia Bedelia Treasury *Mike Mulligan and More *Frog and Toad Treasury *Make Way for McCloskey *A Franklin Treasury Most of those treasuries we have some individual titles from, these are consolidating and gap filling collections. Buying books to get rid of books. I hope I'm not the only person this makes sense to! Papa Papa/Mama Mama Perfectly Arugula Ten Big Toes and a Prince's Nose I Saw an Ant on the Railway Track MSuch a Noise The Mitten Fritz and the Beautiful Horses A Phoebe Gilman or two Ferdinand The Story About Ping Tikki Tikki Tembo Love You Forever (sob!) Princess and the Kiss Just in Case You Ever Wonder R*Baby Beluga My Mommy My Teacher Goodnight Moon (our hardcovers last longer than the board books and eldest put it in her top 10, have to have it somewhere!) It is honestly much easier for me to tell what is valuable and useful now that my oldest is 12 and I have youngers in many stages to watch.

I guess we could see how it goes :).

My shelves tend to be wall to wall. Sigh. We are in 600 sq ft right now. The house will be around 2009 sq ft when finished but we are still living in the back 1/3. Hence all the books in boxes still. I do have a large bookcase in the living room mostly filled with homeschooling stuff. Two pantry type cupboards with doors I keep my curriculum in. A wall to wall unit above the dining room table on the wall (yes...it's true) and a wall to wall above the couch in the living room, and a tall unit beside the couch (around a double wide). Oddly, I'm purging most of the Christian picture books we have. I already did our story Bibles. I was able to get down to 7 in the end (that's bad...I know). Story Bibles I love. Christian picture books? Bleh. They tend to be boooooring! Picture books aren't how I teach my children doctrinal issues it seems. We do that orally around the breakfast table mostly.

This. Exactly this. I want to cling more tightly to the fewer, better books that matter and let go of the lesser ones. Even if that means buying the books we need but don't currently have...despite the copious books we do already have. That's hard to do without a clear target or goals, hence...priority lists! Thanks for chiming in so far, everyone! I pulled a bunch of picture books off the shelf last night (again...poor picture books, I'm always after them!). I'm not quite ready to make a list there yet. I actually want to buy quite a few treasuries.

So, would it be too much to finish in a Single year for an average 8ther?

We have Snuggle Puppy. It only worked the first time with my 2-yo. Sigh. I have some stingy kissers here.

Maybe 40 chapter books is too low. We own many series. Hmmm. Maybe 100. That's still cutting back...a lot. We also have Kindle apps on all our devices, I'm just talking paper book maintenance. DD2 is a paper book lover though :).

I just pitched Goodnight Moon yesterday. Our fourth copy. I just feel so...done with it now that I'm on kiddos 6 and 7. I was hoping to sub Goodnight Gorilla. :P

I think I still have 30 or so. Just not all of the ones I want. Sigh.

Here is my board book list. If it has an * I need to rebuy it. An R* means we wore out our first copy and need another. R*Mr. Brown Can Moo (soooo fun to read) Brown Bear Brown Bear R*Very Hungry Caterpillar Book of baby face photos - currently have Hugs and Kisses from Baby Faces series 100 first words kind of book with photos of things Runaway Bunny Some kind of things that go book with photos *Goodnight Gorilla (we have it in a treasury, but not board book) Animal book of some sort, currently Zoo Babies *Pat the Bunny (which we...have never owned) What would you consider your ten core board books?

I have been on an ongoing journey to purge my book collection. I left 11 boxes behind when we moved cross country three years ago. I have gotten rid of another 5 boxes or so since then. I have a long way to go... I found that I had accumulated many 'lesser' titles at good prices (Goodwill etc.) but there were many that I didn't enjoy reading to my children. Consequently, they were never really read :). I just pitched a bunch of board books yesterday. I'm thinking of cutting back to, and establishing, a core collection of quality titles. The ones I LIKE to read. The ones that ARE read. And maintaining only that. These are outside of established curricular reading, like the literature in Notgrass etc. This list also doesn't include easy readers for establishing fluency or reference/non-fiction works, though I am also paring those down. These are STORIES. I do have seven children from babies to young adult (12), so I need to keep a number of levels on hand. I'm thinking that it would be reasonable to have: 10 Board books (baby-2) 20-40 Picture books (2-7) 20-40 Chapter books (8-12) That would be incredibly drastic for us. Most of my books are still in boxes under the beds and stairs (embarrassing!) I'm making lists, I'll share my picks. Want to share yours?

We are using EIW 7 this year and I'm considering WWS1 for next year. We will also have completed CLE LA through to the end of 7. MFW schedules 1/2 the book for 7th and 1/2 for 8th. Is it too much for a single year? I see quite a few people (even younger children) finishing it in one year. Does this sound like a progression that would make sense? EIW 7 to WWS1? We are gearing up for MFW AHL in 9th.

Oh, we are using EIW for 7th and will use Killgallon for 6th for the next child.