Any LCCers recoving book addicts? How do you make it work?

[Caroline4kids]

I just re-read the LCC book and I just love how is it so simple.

 

I have a confession... I am a terrible book adict.

 

I would love to pair down and focus on LCC, but then I see my shelves of SL books and wonder how I can let it all go. I really want to focus on a few great books and make our school day a little less hectic.

 

If you have implemented LCC in order to simplify your life do you add back in other books as free reading?

 

I am terribly tired trying to cover two SL cores. I LOVE the books, don't get me wrong, but my day is soo long. Hence my pulling LCC off the shelf again.

[Caroline4kids]

Ok, I am typing challenged, but you get my point.:tongue_smilie:

[Willow]

I would be interested in the response to this question. I have so many good books! In fact we have them 2 deep on many bookcases, and one nearly went through the floor this weekend! We had to take all the books off and put the legs on spreaders to spread the load across several joists!

 

My copy of LCC is in the post right now, so I have yet to read it. I would love to simplify our life, and love the idea of less is more....which is why I ordered the book! But does that mean all our lovely books will go unread. I have 4 long shelves of kids historical fiction alone.....

[mo2]

No, your books certainly won't go unread. They will just become free reading, or family read-alouds. They can become your fun reading, not the books that you dissect and discuss in detail.

[Caroline4kids]

I would be interested in the response to this question. I have so many good books! In fact we have them 2 deep on many bookcases, and one nearly went through the floor this weekend! We had to take all the books off and put the legs on spreaders to spread the load across several joists!

 

My copy of LCC is in the post right now, so I have yet to read it. I would love to simplify our life, and love the idea of less is more....which is why I ordered the book! But does that mean all our lovely books will go unread. I have 4 long shelves of kids historical fiction alone.....

 

:) That is us too. When we move for the military we have to add a trailer just for my books or we have too many lbs!

[dragons in the flower bed]

I am terribly tired trying to cover two SL cores. I LOVE the books, don't get me wrong, but my day is soo long. Hence my pulling LCC off the shelf again.

 

:D Most of the time, the stuff Plaid Dad writes makes me think things like, "Doh! OF course!" and, "Yes! Brilliant!" Then every once in a while he says that he doesn't understand why people would want to own thousands of books and I think, "What planet are you from?!"

 

It helped me a lot to focus on the three tiers of reading:

 

- schoolbooks we study together during class time

- family read-alouds

- independent reading

 

My eleven-year-old reads about a book a week. My eight-year-old goes through one every two days. My six-year-old can get through something like Mary Poppins in a week. That's all independent reading. Note that independently reading does not imply independently choosing. It just means I'm not going to test the kids or require them to finish a book they hate.

 

Reading aloud for an hour a day, I can get through a book a week. Reading aloud for two hours a day, say, between supper and bedtime, I can through two books a week. That's family reading.

 

So how many books is that every school year? Two hundred and thirty-four.

 

Two hundred and thirty-four.

 

That doesn't even include summer reading, or our five to ten schoolbooks.

 

That is why I subscribe to the Sonlight catalog.

[Caroline4kids]

:D Most of the time, the stuff Plaid Dad writes makes me think things like, "Doh! OF course!" and, "Yes! Brilliant!" Then every once in a while he says that he doesn't understand why people would want to own thousands of books and I think, "What planet are you from?!"

 

It helped me a lot to focus on the three tiers of reading:

 

- schoolbooks we study together during class time

- family read-alouds

- independent reading

 

My eleven-year-old reads about a book a week. My eight-year-old goes through one every two days. My six-year-old can get through something like Mary Poppins in a week. That's all independent reading. Note that independently reading does not imply independently choosing. It just means I'm not going to test the kids or require them to finish a book they hate.

 

Reading aloud for an hour a day, I can get through a book a week. Reading aloud for two hours a day, say, between supper and bedtime, I can through two books a week. That's family reading.

 

So how many books is that every school year? Two hundred and thirty-four.

 

Two hundred and thirty-four.

 

That doesn't even include summer reading, or our five to ten schoolbooks.

 

That is why I subscribe to the Sonlight catalog.

 

You know I never thought of it that way. I guess we did do about that many a year before I started box checking ala SL.

 

Reading your post makes me realize I need to take a :chillpill: and keep school LCC and let the rest fall where it may.

[dragons in the flower bed]

Reading your post makes me realize I need to take a :chillpill: and keep school LCC and let the rest fall where it may.

 

Excellent! I can carve another notch into my computer desk. :lol:

[amtmcm]

This is very helpful. I'm bumping in hopes of seeing more responses.

[elegantlion]

This was our first year with LCC and we used the recs for lit, but we also had free reading time and read aloud time. My ds is a delayed/reluctant reader and our after school read aloud was usually a fun one.

 

We definitely don't make it through as many books as Rose but we will continue with Read alouds and assigned reading time over the summer. We will continued to do in depth study for lit, lingering in those selections, but saving the funs ones for reading time outside of school.

 

I am still a book addict and have several shelves of books waiting to be read. Between thrift stores and clearance tables I added nine more books this weekend. Half of those were for ds.

 

ETA: LCC definitely has given me the freedom to not stress over feeling like we NEED to read 100 books in a year to feel educated.

Edited April 21, 2009 by elegantlion

[Mama Lynx]

Yes! Our "official" book list is short. We don't stress about getting through it, because it is very, very doable.

 

Outside of that, we're free to read as much as we want!

[HappyGrace]

You gave me a HUGE lightbulb moment with the three tiers. Here I've been trying to pack all this reading in under the "school" heading somehow-oh, blessed RELIEF! Carve another notch in that desk!!!!!!!!!

 

(And Caroline, thank you for posing the question-I own LCC and could never wrap my head around why I couldn't do it, and you formed the question my mind hadn't even known to ask-pinpointed my trouble with it. And then Rose came along and solved the dilemma! So thanks for asking the question I didn't know I had so I could get it answered! :D)

[GoVanGogh]

Thank you, Rose, for your post!

I am a book addict and sometimes wonder how we are ever going to find the time to read all the books we own. (Meanwhile, I am about to hit our library's used book sale this weekend and get some more. :001_smile:)

Your post inspired me to pull a new chapter book off the shelf today. Late afternoons are always so hard on me and I realized, after reading your post, that that would be the perfect time to lay on the couch and read to DS while he plays quietly nearby. We finished half of a chapter book today!

Now if I can make this a habit.

[Caroline4kids]

I can't tell you how relieved I feel too.

 

Today we are just doing math, compostion (in our case: Queen's, Spelling Wisdom and oral/written narration of Famous Men of Rome), Latin, and one narration from our lit book. Ahhhhh, so much relief.

 

We will do our SL history and readers at night for free reading and read aloud time.

 

:party:Blessed Relief!!!!

[In The Great White North]

:D Most of the time, the stuff Plaid Dad writes makes me think things like, "Doh! OF course!" and, "Yes! Brilliant!" Then every once in a while he says that he doesn't understand why people would want to own thousands of books and I think, "What planet are you from?!"

 

He must have access to a much better library than most of us. ILL doesn't even produce most of my requests (including lots of SL books.)

 

Dd(15) can read a novel a day. That's 365 books a year all by herself. And that's just "free reading."

 

I'm going to yet another book sale this weekend - to get the good books, that the library throws out because no one is reading them anymore. :D

[woolybear]

I have never even looked into LCC, but now I know I *have* to. Ugh! I feel like I've changed direction a few times this year and have been wavering over how to proceed with history next year. Now I have to add this in to the mix! However, I see by some of the posts--simplifying things, yet still able to read lots of wonderful books, that this may be just what we need. Thank you, hivers. Off to check out LCC.

 

Wooly

[dragons in the flower bed]

ROSE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

:) Thanks. Glad I could help.

[materursa]

Thank you so much Rose!!! The three tiers of reading is pure genius!

[dragons in the flower bed]

Thank you so much Rose!!! The three tiers of reading is pure genius!

 

I did not think of it! It's in The Latin-Centered Curriculum. Drew gets all the credit. In fact I could be messing it up. I have to find a quote from the book. I'll be back later to add that.

Edited April 21, 2009 by dragons in the flower bed

[Amber in AUS]

Thanks Rose. I ordered LCC after reading a previous post of yours, now can't wait for it to arrive so I can start reading it. I have been struggling with what to schedule where in terms of the tiers too. Thanks again!!

[Plaid Dad]

He must have access to a much better library than most of us.

 

I do. Our system isn't perfect, but I can get most of what I want through ILL. We do have books at home (and very limited living space), and dd has by far the largest collection. But I don't need to own even a small fraction of what I read in a year. I only keep books I will re-read or refer to regularly. We also only have one child, so when she outgrows books, we don't have a reason to keep them around for the next one. That makes a big difference.

[Emmy]

We do have books at home

 

You own a magic treehouse book Plaid Dad? THUD. I just fell over. :p

[chaik76]

I do. Our system isn't perfect, but I can get most of what I want through ILL. We do have books at home (and very limited living space), and dd has by far the largest collection. But I don't need to own even a small fraction of what I read in a year. I only keep books I will re-read or refer to regularly. We also only have one child, so when she outgrows books, we don't have a reason to keep them around for the next one. That makes a big difference.

I only keep books that I will re-read or use for reference, too... For us that leaves us with about five thousand. I regularly purge now. People used to not believe that I have re-read the majority of my books. But it's true! Some of them I've read forty or fifty times. Now, my religion section I use mostly for reference. The rest are re-reads.

 

Of course, even now I read one to two books per day.

 

I do buy my books though, and then donate them. Our library system is abysmal and not worth using, for the most part.

 

Our space isn't particularly limited...our house is 900 sf upstairs and about 300 downstairs.

[dragons in the flower bed]

I did not think of it! It's in The Latin-Centered Curriculum. Drew gets all the credit. In fact I could be messing it up. I have to find a quote from the book. I'll be back later to add that.

 

Okay, here's what I've got, from the 1st edition.

 

Under English Studies in the Primary-School Years (K-2), "Students are introduced to literature by listening to books written at an elevated level of vocabulary and sentence structure, and through increasing amounts of independent reading of high-quality children's books. . . The components of the primary-school English studies curriculum are (1), Phonics; (2), Penmanship and Copywork; (3), Recitation (Memory Work); (4), Literature selections (read aloud by parent); (5), Independent Reading; and (6), Family Reading." Emphasis is mine there.

 

Pages 105-106, under the heading Independent Reading in the Primary-School Years, "From [bob Books] the student can progress to graded early readers and classic picture books . . . You may also want to look at the book lists for programs like Five in a Row, Sonlight, Veritas Press . . . "

 

Then, under Family Reading in the Primary-School Years, "This is the time to enjoy all the classics you remember from your own childhood-- or the ones you wish you'd read! Beatrix Potter's stories, the Pooh books, The Wind in the Willows, Mary Poppins... "

 

ETA: Oh my gosh, the typos! Sorry, Plaid Dad. All weirdnesses here are surely my lame attempt at typing.

Edited April 22, 2009 by dragons in the flower bed
really obvious typos