Am I biting off more than I can chew? 3rd grade Lit/read aloud plan

[ShannonS]

This is our read aloud (literature plan) for a rising third grader. She is a strong reader, but all books will be (at least) started as a read aloud. The blanks are there because I expect the previous weeks' selection to take up that time. As I look at this, I feel a bit overwhelmed... I originally intended to do a lap book on each of these as well.

 

 

 

Week Of

2-Jul The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women

9-Jul Understood Betsy

16-Jul

23-Jul Beowulf

30-Jul Magician's Nephew (will be first intro to Narnia)

6-Aug

13-Aug Jungle Book

20-Aug Arabian knights

27-Aug

3-Sep Chinese Poems and fairy tales

10-Sep Because of Winn Dixie

17-Sep Swiss Family Robinson

BREAK

24-Sep

1-Oct Alice in Wonderland/looking glass

15-Oct

22-Oct Norse Myths and legends

29-Oct Princess and the Curdie

5-Nov Princess and the Goblin

12-Nov

19-Nov King Arthur Tales/Gawain and the Green Knight

26-Nov

3-Dec Jewish Fairy Tales

10-Dec McCaughrean Canterbury Tales

BREAK

31-Dec Smoky the Cowhorse

7-Jan Log of the Cowboy

14-Jan Water Babies

21-Jan Little Lord Fauntleroy

28-Jan

4-Feb Francie (Karen English)

11-Feb The Lost World

18-Feb

25-Feb Just so Stories/riki tiki tavi

4-Mar Treasure Island

11-Mar

Break

18-Mar Darby

1-Apr The Cay

8-Apr

15-Apr Pied Piper of Hamlin

22-Apr Black Beauty

29-Apr Tales from Shakespeare Charles Lamb

6-May

13-May Secret Garden

20-May Indian in the Cupboard

27-May

3-Jun Flower Fables

 

Am I nuts? We do a lot of reading here, but I've never planned a 'curriculum' for it. These are mostly TWTM and GBA recommendations.

[Julie Smith]

Is there a reason you want a plan?

 

I would not like sticking to a plan. Sometimes my boys want to revisit a book or series we read before. Other times they really like a book and want the sequels or book just like it. Still other times they don't like a book at all and I drop it, or we manage to finish it but don't do the sequels.

 

No matter how many books on the list, I would not like to be stuck to a list.

 

As for the number of books. Is that typical for you? If not then perhaps it's unlikely it will work for you.

 

I also can't see what the plan is. Are you planning to have more then one book at a time on the go? I thought that would never work for us, but that was two years ago. Now we have a few on the go at all times.

 

I think you have about 33 books listed. I know that for us that would not be enough to last the year for read alouds. But for my Eldest who is going into third grade he takes about a month to read a chapter book if it's the only thing he is reading. Tomorrow he is about to finish his second long chapter book, "Dealing with Dragons".

Edited July 5, 2012 by Julie Smith

[mamatohaleybug]

It looks challenging but doable. Very similar, in fact, to what we did in 3rd but it was all read aloud.

 

Have fun!!

[PhotoGal]

It does look like a lot to me, but your dd might read a lot more than my rising third grader. I planned 10 books for him to read, 10 audiobooks and a long list of readalouds, but we probably won't get to half of them.

 

Does your dd read (or listen to) a lot in one sitting? If so, it might work fine.

[Julie Smith]

First off I love this thread. :)

 

I have a weakness for read aloud threads.

 

It does look like a lot to me, but your dd might read a lot more than my rising third grader. I planned 10 books for him to read, 10 audiobooks and a long list of readalouds, but we probably won't get to half of them.

 

Does your dd read (or listen to) a lot in one sitting? If so, it might work fine.

 

Like you my rising third grader would have trouble with 10 books planned for him. (Unless shorter chapter books such as "The Littles" or "Moongooble".

 

But both boys will contently listen to books as in audio or me reading for 30 minutes to an hour a sitting. They can listen for a lot longer then that if it's a new and very interesting book. For example they listened to "Thor's Wedding day" in one sitting, so about 3 hours. Same with "The Adventures of Billy Mink" and several others.

[ShannonS]

Thanks for the feedback ladies.

 

I wish I was confident enough as a homeschooling parent to take a more relaxed approach, and not plan so much, but HS is new to me, and as a product of public schools myself, the whole idea of meeting 'benchmark XYZ' by so and so date is deeply ingrained. I was going in circles about this, and I have decided to plan away and then reflect on it at the end of the year. Live and learn, right

 

DD8 is a fairly strong reader, among other things, she has read the Little House series and all of Lang's Fairy Books independently. Even so, a lot of the above is what I would label "heavy" (Treasure Island at 8?!?), so I tried to alternate the more difficult books with whimsical stories...

 

Have any of you ended a read aloud with a lapbook?

[Aurelia]

It looks pretty intimidating to me. For some weeks, you might need to eliminate books or invest in audio books. My copies of Black Beauty and The Jungle Book, for example, have 250 pages each. I'm not sure I could get through that in a week, unless I used something prerecorded. YMMV, though.

 

I actually made a loose schedule for next year, with books (about 12, I think) I knew I absolutely wanted to get to, and plan to add in more as time allows. And just so you know, The Princess and Curdie is the sequel The Princess and the Goblin, so you might want to switch the order they're in. :001_smile:

[ShannonS]

It looks pretty intimidating to me. For some weeks, you might need to eliminate books or invest in audio books. My copies of Black Beauty and The Jungle Book, for example, have 250 pages each. I'm not sure I could get through that in a week, unless I used something prerecorded. YMMV, though.

 

I actually made a loose schedule for next year, with books (about 12, I think) I knew I absolutely wanted to get to, and plan to add in more as time allows. And just so you know, The Princess and Curdie is the sequel The Princess and the Goblin, so you might want to switch the order they're in. :001_smile:

 

Thanks Aurelia :) I did not know that!

[MerryAtHope]

My thoughts...

 

I love your selections and have read many of these! You might find Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, and Canterbury Tales are better at a bit older age, but ymmv. Might depend on the version you are using for some of these.

 

I read the whole Narnia series to my kids at about this age, they loved it! Though truly, there are some deep thoughts woven in and my dh and I really loved reading these as well.

 

Did you look at the number of chapters and size of print and determine that these follow your normal reading pace, or did you just list them out? If you did the latter, you may want to go back and check the former.

 

What I do rather than go by date is list books by school week. Ie,

week 1-The Serpent Slayer and Other Stories of Strong Women

week 2-Understood Betsy

week 4-Beowulf

 

and so on. Then at the bottom of my list, I keep a list of optional books so that I can add in a book if we get ahead of schedule, or switch out a book if I change my mind, etc...

 

Listing by weeks is nice because then if "life happens" and week 4 doesn't start right on July 23, we're not "behind."

 

Whatever you plan, hold onto it loosely. Don't let it stress you if you end up off track, just adjust as needed, drop or add things, switch them...whatever you need or want to do.

 

Hope you have a great year! Merry :-)

[PhotoGal]

Also, keep in mind what you want to do regarding each book. Do you want her to just read it? Have a discussion at the end? Do projects, writing, etc. related to the book? That will affect how long each book takes. It might be better to dive deeply into fewer books during school time and offer some of them to her for free reading time.

 

Keep in mind your overall goal for her. To love reading? Expand vocabulary? Enjoy stories? Learn about people/places? That might shape what you do with the books she is reading.

 

I would also recommend planning for just the first month or two and see how things go. Then you will have an idea of how long you like to spend per book.

[Mom in High Heels]

Some of those are really loooooong books. Are these books she's going to read or are you going to read aloud to her? Read alouds mean different things to different people. The long books could really drain both of you trying to read them in a week, and you would have no voice!

 

I agree with the pp about scheduling by week instead of date. You never know what's going to come up and you may have to take a week off for whatever reason and then you're plan is mucked up. And what if a book takes more than 1 or even 2 weeks? What will you do then?

 

I keep a list of books I want to read during the year and we just pick one and read it until we're done and then move on to the next. It might mean we don't finish all the books on the list, but...eh.

 

I do schedule as I NEED a plan, but I learned that I have to put wiggle room in the plan or I'm replanning and replanning and making myself crazy. I've sworn I won't do that this year, but we haven't even started the year yet and I've already rewritten the first 8 weeks because I realized I was putting just waaaay too much in and we would never finish the week, I'd stress out and have to rewrite again. Boo.

[Down_the_Rabbit_Hole]

Great list.

I agree with Merry. Either make the list with a week# or no number at all. If you want certain read alouds to go with another subject then make a note when you need the book read. I make a list of read alouds and readers at the beginning of the year but no order to them. The lists contains books I think need to be read, I want to read, dd would love and what would go good with a subject being learned. usually I wind up adding a books in, eliminating books and switching books out.

[My3Munchkins]

Maybe consider dropping the dates if you're feeling overwhelmed. I have a rising third grader too and am working on an independent reading list as well as a read aloud list. I'm not going to put dates though because I never know how long a book is going to take, especially a read aloud. Sometimes dc love the book we're reading aloud and we read several chapters several times a day and finish it in a few days. Other times a book will take several weeks. Also, if they really like a book that is part of a series, we may read several others in the series. I would hate to feel like I had to stick to a schedule for reading.

[boscopup]

A book a week sounds ambitious to me. My voice would be gone. :)

 

I agree with taking out the dates, and just go down the list. Since you want a box to check, have a â€read aloud†box on your schedule for each day. That way, you're reading everyday, but if a book takes 2 weeks, it's ok! You don't have to finish the list. Public school 3rd graders don't have nearly that many books, so no need to feel like you're not doing enough. ;)

 

I'm doing Sonlight this year, and for read-alouds alone, there are maybe 8 or 10? They usually span 2-3 weeks, and some are even more.

[BFamily]

The list looks great. I agree with other posters about tossing out the dates and dividing the list into smaller lists by importance. I am having my sons work on five books for "literature" this year, so they will have time to really sit down and analyze them. Everything else is considered free reading for them.

For example, we devote two days per week to literature, two days per week to free reading and one day per week to poetry. For literature, they will be independently reading Wind in the Willows, As You Like It and Robinson Crusoe and completing a detailed literature guide of each. I will be reading The Iliad and Odyssey to them during our read aloud time, and they will be completing guides on those, too. That's our literature.

For free reading, I have a list of books I would like for them to read, and they choose what they like and read it. When they finish the book, they complete a light evaluation and move to the next book. No time restraints - just do the next book of their choice.

On Fridays, they read poetry.

Additionally, I will be reading books from my read aloud list throughout the year, after we finish The Iliad and Odyssey.

In all, my boys will be reading through three different books at varying paces at the same time for most of the year - their independent reading "literature" book, their free reading book and the read aloud. We will complete their literature books during the year, but everything else is on a "just do the next thing" schedule - no big deal, if we don't get to everything on those lists.

[lotsofpumpkins]

I personally would ditch the schedule. Give your dc a list of approved books, and let them pick which order to read them in. My dc have to read for at least 30 minutes per day. They have to finish a book before they start a new one. (Unless it is truly too difficult for them.) This is just for the school-time reading. In their free time they read quite a bit too; my oldest two dc usually have several books going at a time. Every completed book is logged; we put the list in their portfolios at the end of the year.

 

This is just how we do it; I do think that eliminating a schedule helps to keep the love of reading alive.

 

I think someone else mentioned this--- your dc might want to read the entire Narnia series after reading the first book. My dd read the entire series in the 3rd grade and loved it. You might want to give your dc the freedom to do that if desired.

[Vida Winter]

It is a great list. When you get pressed for time, do some of these as audio books -- there are some very good recordings available for some of them. The Cay and Indian in the Cupboard come to mind.

[Mom22ns]

I love your selections and have read many of these! You might find Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Treasure Island, Swiss Family Robinson, and Canterbury Tales are better at a bit older age, but ymmv. Might depend on the version you are using for some of these.

 

Whatever you plan, hold onto it loosely. Don't let it stress you if you end up off track, just adjust as needed, drop or add things, switch them...whatever you need or want to do.

 

Hope you have a great year! Merry :-)

 

:iagree:

 

Merry's list of books that are better saved a little longer is worth paying attention to.

 

I will be the sole dissenter and say keep your dates instead of using weeks! We plan our school year, what days we school and what days we're off, long in advance. I have to go through all the curriculum that plan by week and put in the dates that is for me so I don't get lost. It is just easier for me. There is nothing wrong with planning by the calendar.

 

We've used Sonlight many years and the number of books you are planning doesn't bother me at all. However, I wouldn't try to stick to the schedule too closely. It is your guide. If you find a book takes longer and you get behind, don't ruin the book by rushing through it. We usually find there are some books in our schedule that we all love so much we read them during school, after school and maybe again at bedtime and they are finished in 1/3 or less of the amount of time I schedule. Those books catch us up.

 

I love schedules and I love planning, just be prepared to let the schedule flex so it doesn't take the joy out of reading, but rather leads you along to amazing adventures.

[Ellie]

It looks overwhelming to me, too.

 

Understood Betsy has 10 chapters, and they're long chapters. I don't know how you could read the whole book in the amount of time you have scheduled.

 

I'm sure the other books are the same way.

 

Must you have such a schedule? Can't you just make the list of books you'd like to read, and go from there?

[kirstenhill]

I think you've gotten a lot of good advice here to go with a non-dated plan for your reading -- whether you number your weeks or just have a list of books you want to read in a particular order. As the pp's said, it's so hard to know how long each book will take. If I were you I would channel your desire for specific goals and schedules into other subjects -- it's much easier to schedule out math or spelling, for instance -- and then try and be more relaxed with the literature. You'll still read plenty of books this year.

 

I think the number is do-able. I read 25 read alouds to my second grader last year reading 30-60 minutes per night before bed.

 

For this next year I have a list of around 35-40 read alouds for third grade including both books related to history and those not related to our history -- but I know we might not get to all of them and some of those will be much shorter read alouds that my 3rd grader could potentially read alone (but I am reading them aloud so my rising K'er can experience some of them as well). And next year we'll read both during the day (with the 3rd grader and the K'er) and at bedtime (just the 3rd grader and me).

 

You also asked about Lapbooks. I think it would not be reasonable at all to make a lapbook for every book you read, unless you are talking just one or two mini-books per book. When we have done a couple literature based lapbooks in the past, it took significant time over a couple weeks to make a lapbook covering just one or two books. Of course, YMMV and you might be able to get thru a lapbook faster if you child loves cutting/pasting/writing. You might want to check out notebooking, since there is a lot less crafty time (potentially) in making a notebook page for each book you read.

[Pen]

My thought mainly is yes, you could do it...but it might make reading into something that is unpleasant and that that would be counterproductive. I am a do the next thing type planner, so I cannot speak exactly to the plan you have, but having recently finished 3rd, I'll make comments where I can below.

 

My favorite thing about your List is how multicultural it is.

 

One of the biggest things I noticed, that is perhaps the flip side to it being multicultural, is that it jumps from thing to thing. I have noticed that for us, once we have read one thing of a type we tend to want to do more along those lines, or to go deeper. That may be different in your HS's concepts, but your plan would have led to frustration here, not so much because of quantity, but because of the jumping around. For example, in 1st to 3rd grades we read all of certain series and groups of books, and did so in order, rather than, say the second Narnia book only. Also, I want to add that if you've not done so yet, I highly recommend all of the Little House Books and the Rose years books and all of the E.B. White books for children.

 

This is our read aloud (literature plan) for a rising third grader. She is a strong reader, but all books will be (at least) started as a read aloud. The blanks are there because I expect the previous weeks' selection to take up that time. As I look at this, I feel a bit overwhelmed... I originally intended to do a lap book on each of these as well. The lap book idea on top of the reading does seem rather overwhelming! Could there be maybe one lap book for all 3rd grade books? Or...none unless it is spontaneous that she wants to do that?

 

 

 

Week Of

...

23-Jul Beowulf I think I got one week for this at college level and found that a lot. :)

30-Jul Magician's Nephew (will be first intro to Narnia) Chronologically, it is first of the Narnia events, but The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe is the first book, and I would start there, personally. I'd also read at least the first 3, if they are liked by both of you, rather than just one. We did the whole series in order. I personally prefer book 1 and book 3 to book 2. I think one could easily read Mag. Neph. first and decide they did not like the series, whereas reading Lion, etc. first is more likely to be an accurate guide to whether this is or isn't a series that you like.

6-Aug

13-Aug Jungle Book

20-Aug Arabian knights The Arabian Nights were stories to last for 101 nights were they not? 2 weeks seems short unless you are just doing a few of the tales.

27-Aug

3-Sep Chinese Poems and fairy tales While the skipping around would be a frustration here, I do LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the great variety that you have chosen in terms of exposure to things from many cultures, both as to place and time and so forth.

10-Sep Because of Winn Dixie delightful book! For us this set off a whole dog books reading trail.

17-Sep Swiss Family Robinson I loved this book when I was a child. My son hated it. We gave up on it. I have no idea about your child, but am only commenting in so far as to remind you that plans may not end up fitting well. It is not very pleasant to read aloud to someone who detests a book one is reading.

BREAK

24-Sep

1-Oct Alice in Wonderland/looking glass A rare situation where I think this may not take as long as you have given it...but might take more time if you are doing projects related to it.

15-Oct

22-Oct Norse Myths and legends I would tend to leave these till older, say 4th--but may be influenced by my Waldorf connection where these are the core for 4th grade. My son, however, decided to give them a miss altogether and went for Greek myths instead.

29-Oct ...

19-Nov King Arthur Tales/Gawain and the Green Knight

26-Nov

3-Dec Jewish Fairy Tales

10-Dec McCaughrean Canterbury Tales I don't know anything about this version, but would tend to leave CT till older.

...

 

I don't know how these will work. If you and your child like to keep having variiety, it could be excellent. And again I do LOVE the multicultural feel to your list. We would tend to more follow themes, or something. Could be a theme of animals, or of an author, or of princesses, or myths and legends, or some such. And then other things we are doing will pick up the theme. Literature has tended to dominate and steer our other subjects, rather than history doing so as in WTM.

 

 

As you appear to already be into your plan's dates, how is it going so far?

Edited July 5, 2012 by Pen

[Momma2Luke]

What a truly great list of books!

 

As previous posters have mentioned, I would remove the dates and expected completion time frames...

 

As someone who has been a voracious reader since I was 5 years old... I've come to learn to appreciate the fine art of marinating... I have a life long habit of simply devouring books without letting them marinade in my thoughts for a while... devouring books should not be the goal... There is much value in sitting with your thoughts and just ruminating on the book for a while... playing around with some questions for a few days at the dinner table....

 

My advice is to keep the list but drop the dates and expectations....

[ShannonS]

The list looks great. I agree with other posters about tossing out the dates and dividing the list into smaller lists by importance. I am having my sons work on five books for "literature" this year, so they will have time to really sit down and analyze them. Everything else is considered free reading for them.

For example, we devote two days per week to literature, two days per week to free reading and one day per week to poetry. For literature, they will be independently reading Wind in the Willows, As You Like It and Robinson Crusoe and completing a detailed literature guide of each. I will be reading The Iliad and Odyssey to them during our read aloud time, and they will be completing guides on those, too. That's our literature.

For free reading, I have a list of books I would like for them to read, and they choose what they like and read it. When they finish the book, they complete a light evaluation and move to the next book. No time restraints - just do the next book of their choice.

On Fridays, they read poetry.

Additionally, I will be reading books from my read aloud list throughout the year, after we finish The Iliad and Odyssey.

In all, my boys will be reading through three different books at varying paces at the same time for most of the year - their independent reading "literature" book, their free reading book and the read aloud. We will complete their literature books during the year, but everything else is on a "just do the next thing" schedule - no big deal, if we don't get to everything on those lists.

 

Hi BFamily. Thanks for giving me an example of your lit layout. What literature guides do you use? Until this point I have only had DD8 do brief (3-5 sentence) narrations or have light discussion, but I would love to go more in depth with the right guide.

[ShannonS]

Wow thank you forum! What a fabulous resource this place is! I am new to homeschool (this will be my first full year) and I am so thankful for the detailed feedback.

 

:grouphug:

[ShannonS]

My thought mainly is yes, you could do it...but it might make reading into something that is unpleasant and that that would be counterproductive. I am a do the next thing type planner, so I cannot speak exactly to the plan you have, but having recently finished 3rd, I'll make comments where I can below.

 

My favorite thing about your List is how multicultural it is.

 

One of the biggest things I noticed, that is perhaps the flip side to it being multicultural, is that it jumps from thing to thing. I have noticed that for us, once we have read one thing of a type we tend to want to do more along those lines, or to go deeper. That may be different in your HS's concepts, but your plan would have led to frustration here, not so much because of quantity, but because of the jumping around. For example, in 1st to 3rd grades we read all of certain series and groups of books, and did so in order, rather than, say the second Narnia book only. Also, I want to add that if you've not done so yet, I highly recommend all of the Little House Books and the Rose years books and all of the E.B. White books for children.

 

 

 

As you appear to already be into your plan's dates, how is it going so far?

 

Thank you for the feedback. I did intend for it to be diverse. My initial plan was to theme the year around strong women in literature, as I recall being quite impressionable at age 8 and I wanted to introduce some amazing female characters that we could contrast the rest of the years' selections with. It kind of grew in all directions from there. I was also trying to align it somewhat with SOTW2, i.e. Chinese Poems is the same week we are studying China, King Arthurs Tales with the Crusades and Kings of England, etc..

 

I am hesitant about the Narnia series. DD8 is the oldest of four, and part of me would really like to wait until they are all old enough to enjoy it together, but then again I think it is time to introduce her...

 

We did Little House series and most of E.B. White last year (we LOVE E.B. White around here.) What are the Rose years books?

 

On some specific books:

 

Arabian nights - I got a Dover edition that only has six of the main stories and is cleaned up for the kids...

 

Alice - I was thinking the same thing....

 

Norse Myths - I really wanted to introduce this after the last six months of Greek myths. I just intuitively think I need to show her were other mythological 'systems' around..

 

McCaughrean's CT - We made it through McCaughrean's Odyssey and Black Ships Before Troy, so I am hoping for the best. I have not browsed through it in person though, so we will see...

 

We are on schedule three days in lol. The Serpent Slayer...Strong Women is great and DD8 loves it so far! It is a compilation of 18 folk tales. We started it with two nights of joint read aloud before bed, but then she finished it independently today. Yay? I was enjoying reading them with her...and Understood Betsy has not arrived from Amazon yet! :blink:

[ShannonS]

What a truly great list of books!

 

As previous posters have mentioned, I would remove the dates and expected completion time frames...

 

As someone who has been a voracious reader since I was 5 years old... I've come to learn to appreciate the fine art of marinating... I have a life long habit of simply devouring books without letting them marinade in my thoughts for a while... devouring books should not be the goal... There is much value in sitting with your thoughts and just ruminating on the book for a while... playing around with some questions for a few days at the dinner table....

 

My advice is to keep the list but drop the dates and expectations....

 

Wise words I needed to hear today!:001_smile:

[zenjenn]

Totally agree with dropping the schedule. Literature readings are probably the most cherished part of our school day, and something we all enjoy. We stop, have discussions, enjoy - but forcing a time frame would just be too stressful and, IMO, risk the potential for ruining the ability to just foster a love of literature. Especially at this age. Reading a bit less is worth a drive to the botanical gardens, a walk on the trails, and reading in a treehouse while sipping lemonade.

 

There is plenty of time for rigorous reading assignments and crammed reading sessions later in life.

[BFamily]

Hi BFamily. Thanks for giving me an example of your lit layout. What literature guides do you use? Until this point I have only had DD8 do brief (3-5 sentence) narrations or have light discussion, but I would love to go more in depth with the right guide.

We're using the Memoria Press literature guides. This will be our first year using these, but I am hopeful, because as of yet, I have never been disappointed with anything I have purchased from MP. There are a lot of great guides out there, but these happened to look like they would meet my goals and expectations the best - and I happen to like their literature selections, too.

[Julie Smith]

We're using the Memoria Press literature guides. This will be our first year using these, but I am hopeful, because as of yet, I have never been disappointed with anything I have purchased from MP. There are a lot of great guides out there, but these happened to look like they would meet my goals and expectations the best - and I happen to like their literature selections, too.

 

I'm curious to take a look at these.

 

I can't find a online sample. Do you know if they have one?

 

http://www.memoriapress.com/descriptions/LiteratureGuides.html/

[BFamily]

I'm curious to take a look at these.

 

I can't find a online sample. Do you know if they have one?

 

http://www.memoriapress.com/descriptions/LiteratureGuides.html/

Samples can be found on the top, left side of the page you linked; it took me a few minutes to find them the first time, too, because you would think the samples would be listed with the actual products under each grade category instead of off to the side like that.

[Julie Smith]

Samples can be found on the top, left side of the page you linked; it took me a few minutes to find them the first time, too, because you would think the samples would be listed with the actual products under each grade category instead of off to the side like that.

 

Thank you.

I missed that.

[Eileen Aroon]

The list looks great. I agree with other posters about tossing out the dates and dividing the list into smaller lists by importance. I am having my sons work on five books for "literature" this year, so they will have time to really sit down and analyze them. Everything else is considered free reading for them.

For example, we devote two days per week to literature, two days per week to free reading and one day per week to poetry. For literature, they will be independently reading Wind in the Willows, As You Like It and Robinson Crusoe and completing a detailed literature guide of each. I will be reading The Iliad and Odyssey to them during our read aloud time, and they will be completing guides on those, too. That's our literature.

For free reading, I have a list of books I would like for them to read, and they choose what they like and read it. When they finish the book, they complete a light evaluation and move to the next book. No time restraints - just do the next book of their choice.

On Fridays, they read poetry.

Additionally, I will be reading books from my read aloud list throughout the year, after we finish The Iliad and Odyssey.

In all, my boys will be reading through three different books at varying paces at the same time for most of the year - their independent reading "literature" book, their free reading book and the read aloud. We will complete their literature books during the year, but everything else is on a "just do the next thing" schedule - no big deal, if we don't get to everything on those lists.

 

I LOVE this! I want to go to there!