How does the "Book Basket" work in MFW?

[ktgrok]

In my head this is a basket that you fill with appropriate books, and they pick which ones they want to read. but....are they required to read a certain number? Or a certain amount per day? I have a son that pretty much lost the love of learning when he spent his first 5 years in public school...I see him just not reading any of hte books if I don't require it. (When I do require reading he enjoys it, but won't do it on his own). So...how does it work? We are at a point where he would like a bit more control over his schooling, and I was thinking one way would be to just get him various books that correspond with our theme that week and let him pick and choose what he reads from, but he has to do a certain amount of reading a day. But then he'd probably stick with just fiction...maybe. Do you put non fiction in their too?

[*lifeoftheparty*]

My DS really doesn't likento read and we already read a lot, so, we watch documentaries as our book basket :) DS loves docentaries and really retains the info.

 

In Adventures, we watched a lot of biographies from A & E, America: All about us, Modern marvels episodes about My. Rushmore, the ones about national parks....,

 

Found some on science.

 

This year, for ECC, we are watching some about the various countries. I have the completenRick Steves Travels in Europe series, we watch those.

 

We have watched David Attenborough and other movies about the various biomes, rainforests, etc.

 

We watch them last, at the end of the day... Turn out the lights, grab a blanket and relax on the couch. It's relaxing and a nice end to the day. Granted, it's almost impossible to do it every single day.... Sometimes we'll watch some on the weekends. Between Netflix and Amazon Prime, there are more than we could ever watch.

 

ETA: Sorry about typos, on the iPod :)

[kajm]

I get books from the library (pre-ordered, then I just pick them up) and, combined with what we have at the house, can usually come up with some books about whatever we have studied that day. There may be a few books about a history topic, science, nature and whatever else for that given night. Then I give them to the kids at bedtime and they look at them/read until it's "lights out". It's a nice way to wind down after the day. They have really grown to love this time.

 

I don't give them the whole weeks' books at one time, I sort them myself and give them some each night about that day's topics. I used to pick some books and put a sticky note with "Read" on it for ones I wanted them to read, but have waned from that some since they are now picking some themselves to read. But I also pick some "just for fun" books that I know they will like and want to read. You may want to do this to regain your son's love of learning. I would certainly pick some picture books for this.

 

I use both fiction and non-fiction. You can find some really good books of both. Also look for some discovery type books, like science discovery with pictures, etc. I think the main thing at first will be getting him to enjoy this as a relaxing time and hopefully he will start looking forward to it. Then maybe he will start reading chapter books at some point. My son has done this if it's an exciting adventure story.

 

Hope it works for you!

[Lisa in the UP of MI]

I have a third grader and a first grader doing Adventures. I order as many of the books listed in the back as I can (and with interlibrary loan I can usually get most of them). I try to pick one or two to read aloud each day, and assign my third grader any longer or extra books to read. She is a huge reader, so I often try to find other American history chapter books, like from Sonlight, to borrow for her to read as well. First grade ds just reads reader books that I get from the library.

 

ETA: Depending on what topic we are studying, I try to assign dd at least 1-2 books a day. Often times she'll tell me she has already read that book. When I come home from the library with a pile of books she will read several or more of them, though I do usually try to put the science and history books to the side right away.

[freesia]

In my head this is a basket that you fill with appropriate books, and they pick which ones they want to read. but....are they required to read a certain number? Or a certain amount per day? I have a son that pretty much lost the love of learning when he spent his first 5 years in public school...I see him just not reading any of hte books if I don't require it. (When I do require reading he enjoys it, but won't do it on his own). So...how does it work? We are at a point where he would like a bit more control over his schooling, and I was thinking one way would be to just get him various books that correspond with our theme that week and let him pick and choose what he reads from, but he has to do a certain amount of reading a day. But then he'd probably stick with just fiction...maybe. Do you put non fiction in their too?

This is very much what we do. I fill the book basket with mostly non-fiction (but often some fiction I would like them to read but can't get to as a read aloud) books that have to do with our theme. I assign my upper elementary child to read 30 minutes from the book basket about 3x a week. Very occasionally I have her do a narration page relating to what she's read (it depends on how much writing she is doing in other subjects that week). I did the same for my son when he was upper elementary.

 

On Fridays once co-op is done and this summer, I plan to fill the basket with a variety of books (subjects that might interest my kids and ones we haven't covered yet) and assign an hour of reading from it.

 

We don't do MFW--have done Sonlight and Tog--but I've always had a book basket and found it very helpful. The kids like having a choice of what they learn about.

[Mommy22alyns]

Our book basket is mostly non-fiction. I add in extra novels when the girls aren't reading other things or as read alouds. I just pile a bunch of things in there and let them go to town. Maybe 15-20 minutes a day.