What My Child Is Reading

I thought I would share Selena’s favorite independent reading books this week. It has been so sweet to have her sit down and just ask me if she can read me a story. I just love to listen to her read to me, as well as to hear her discovering new words everyday. She tries so hard to sound all sorts of words out to figure out what they are, some she gets with the first attempt and others we have to talk about why they don’t sound the way she thinks they should. One word I can think of off the top of my head that she learned here lately is honeycomb. We have a restaurant here in town called the Bee Hive, and the lounge is called the Honeycomb room. We were sitting in the parking lot waiting for Papa’s van pool when she looked up and asked if we could go in the Honey come room. I had to explain why comb is pronounced the way it is and not pronounced as come. She makes discoveries like this all the time.

Anyway two of her favorite books to read to me this week have been from very easy to a little more difficult beginning chapter book.

My Cat and the Hat by Sherry Kurz is a book that came in a series of first readers from Christian Liberty Press. Selena never really cared for these books, I don’t know if it was because they are set up so much like Progressive Phonics or just that the stories didn’t interest her. She has rediscovered them in her stack of books, and is always so proud of herself that she can now read them independently, every word not just the highlighted phonics words. She also makes sure to read every phonic word listed in the back of the book as well.

A Bug, a Bear, and a Boy Go to School, by David McPhail is a book that we have read many times together. When we have a book like this I try to get Selena to read with me, by reading the words I know she knows. She has been enjoying reading this book to me almost nightly. It is a cute book about a Bug, a Bear and a Boy who go to school, they go through various different aspects of school, each at his or her own level. The bear rights on top of the blackboard, the bug at the bottom, and the boy in the middle. There is a lot of problem solving that takes place on the playground as they quickly discover that the bear is too heavy for many of the things they are trying to do, but with problem solving and compromising they discover a great way to have fun.

We had fun with a couple of books and a video from the library, that Leah over at Almost Unschoolers recommended. While I felt that a couple of these would be over Selena’s head, I was pleased that my instinct that they would open her mind to math did happen.

We watched Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. It is a hilarious movie about a girl who when her teacher tells her that math can be found all around her in everyday life. She goes crazy realizing that this is true. While yes, this was over Selena’s head, she still loved watching this girl go through her days. I know there were things that Selena was relating to especially when she started counting her clothes, became more interested in picking out her own clothes for the day, and just listening to her using her counting and adding skills.

We enjoyed A Collection for Kate, by Barbara deRubertis. Selena had fun relating to Kate, who was struggling with her class assignment to share her favorite collection with the class. The math in the book was well over Selena’s head, but she enjoyed going through her bins after reading this book, and grouped all the things that were alike. I loved hearing her reasoning why something belonged in a certain group and not another. She did this numerous times each time telling me how many things she had in each group.

I have seen Selena using so much more math since we watched and read the books about math. I believe she has even been surprising herself just how easy math really can be, when she doesn’t really think about what she is doing and just lets it flow, from telling me she needed three more boxes added to her seven boxes to make ten total boxes on her hopscotch game, to realizing she needed one more block added to her nineteen blocks to make a total of twenty blocks in her tower.

I am linking this over at Mouse Grows Mouse Learns.