Read-Aloud-Revival (RAR)

[Ema]

RAR, anyone premium members or were once members? Do/did you love it? If you were premium members once and no longer are, why aren’t you anymore? What parts of the membership are most worth the cost?  Does it really work for teaching literature? Talk to me about it!

[Lizzytra]

We were once members. We absolutely loved it. We are taking a break for the summer. I also canceled Netflix. I found I had a lot of subscription services and I just wanted to temporarily drop them all and evaluate what we wanted to keep. 

We not only watched the Live author access streams, but I would also gather the kids around to watch previous author/illustrator interviews (with membership you can watch all previous interviews). I did my best to make it special. Some days I would announce that we would skip grammar/writing and watch an author video. We had fun w/the suggested activities, for instance: drinking a really cold Coke as fast as possible for Okay For Now by Gary Schmidt, for example.  I even printed out the sheets and have them in a file so that I can do them w/my little kids when they get older.  We read authors I don't think we would have read if not for the RAR author events. Like Brandon Mull. He is now one of our favorites and two of my kids have read everything he has written. 

I definitely got very into it. Which probably helped create a lot of excitement for my kids. I am enjoying the break, but I plan to join again in the fall, perhaps. 

I should add that I have ages 1-14. My big kids enjoyed the little kids books, and my big kids enjoy occasionally reading to a preschool sibling. When an author access was coming up, or shortly after, I would go onto the library website and check out a variety of books by that author. I would then display the books on .99 cent stands I picked up from Wal-Mart around the home. 

I didn't count it as any kind of curriculum. It was just fun. And I had a lot of fun. I would read aloud as much as I could. When we read Okay for Now, my husband even joined in after the story was well underway. We were all so taken with the story I read for hours into the night. That book spurred us into a brief study and fascination with Audubon.  

I also love listening to the RAR podcast. I have only listened to about 8 episodes, but I have really enjoyed them. I think through RAR I have learned to relax and have more fun w/books. Even for myself. 

[Ausmumof3]

I’ve had a couple of bursts with the monthly membership.  I dropped it recently because all the upcoming books were stuff we already read and I needed to cut somewhere.  I would like to do it again at some stage budget depending.    To be honest my favourite part of membership was the mama books clubs.  The kids liked the classes that included drawing.  Down sides were occasional weird time zones and the kids kind of got bored with the author interviews.