Entries Tagged 'literature' ↓

Just a brief note to say that, apparently, The Wonderful Wizard of Oz is the best book that’s ever been written, and needs to go to the top of Gamma’s Lit Picks.  After a two hour marathon reading session this afternoon, we finished, and Gamma wanted to immediately begin again!  Gamma has also declared the book superior to the movie, and questions why they made the changes they did.  Why aren’t the slippers silver, like in the story?  Did you know the Tin Woodman used to be a real man? So many details left out that would have added to the story.  No answers here, but apparently a life-long love of fantasy borne in a single book…

Enough with the mommy guilt.  Oh, I’ve got plenty in reserve for the coming weeks.  Plenty of concerns, fears, hesitations, but what ifs, etc. to keep you reading for months.  Instead, let’s take a look at the good.

Gamma and I made homemade currant bread while Epsilon played in the sink:

We found this in the yard:

The boys played outside in their pjs after dark:

Captain Courageous here had just watched a movie that scared him the night before...

...so he enlisted Epsilon to hold his hand as they ventured to the farside of the garden.

the young adventurers returning safely home.

Epsilon most definitely does NOT need to take naps anymore (according to him):

I made the mistake of leaving Epsilon on his own for five minutes so I could run upstairs and get dressed:

exhibit A

exhibit B

exhibit C

Unschoolish highlights of the week to set my schoolish heart at ease:

• finished reading Fantastic Mr. Fox and Gamma begged me to read it again.  Instead, we started and are nearly halfway through The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, which Gamma says is way better than the movie.
• watched Pole to Pole and Mountains, two of the Planet Earth episodes.  This sparked much conversation regarding the circle of life, predators, and what happens to a species when its natural predators disappear.
• a cheap, plastic toy centipede sparked the question, “is this an insect?”, which led to a couple hours buried in our bug book, comparing insects, centipedes, millipedes, etc.  Fascinated that Alpha and I have seen enormous centipedes in Hawaii.
• Alpha and I have recently started working out in earnest, leading to questions such as “how fast can you make your heart run?  what happens if you make it run too fast?  will it explode?  can you make it run too fast?  Much time spent perusing the body encyclopedia, looking at heart info and identifying the muscles that we were working.
• read plenty of BOB books; also the titles to the chapters of the books we’re reading, the Cheerios box, instructions on the new Wii Mario Kart game, etc.
• wrote a letter to his cousin: I luv you Paige.  Gud job on yur driving test.  Love, Gamma
• taught Epsilon how to play with the Starfall site on the computer.
• watched a Just So Darwin episode on pufferfish.
• played with the Wii, on the computer, make-believe of all sorts, and built models with his Legos.

And lots and lots of other stuff.

I’ve done some editing as of late around here, to reflect our slightly less-schooly mentality (haven’t gone all the way, sorry JJ!).  Note the change from “teaching them to think for themselves” to “thinking for ourselves… all day, in every way.”    The reading seems to be rolling along just fine, despite my interference.  So, for the time being, I’m letting go of that.   I think Gamma’s getting more out of reading the instructions for video games, et al, than he was getting out of our phonics program.  Recently, he seems to be quite intrigued by maths, so we’re working on that more.  Funny to me, he still gets the numerals 6,7,8, and 9 confused, but he can add and subtract, and even multiply numbers much higher.  The concept is there, just not the notation.

Also, Gamma’s Lit Picks in the sidebar will no longer contain just our current reads.  Rather, it will hold only the cream of the crop — books Gamma personally recommends for other adventure-loving, thrill-seeking, irrepressible five year old boys!  As you can all ready see, we’ve been on a bit of a Roald Dahl kick, as of late.  We’ve also read Winnie the Pooh and attempted The Wind in the Willows, but neither of them have passed the 5-year old boy test!  Hopefully, someday, this list will help other starting-out homeschooling mums, desperate for good literature for their young sons — sons who are left cold by the current “recommended” reads for this age group!

This will hopefully become a weekly feature.  In keeping with the laid back, CM-ish tone of our homeschool, Gamma narrates a story we’ve read a few times this week, from Aesop’s Fables. **edited to add: from here on out, Gamma is dictating.  I just did the typing, because I’m a wee bit faster than him.  For now…

*****

A fable is a pretend story where animals act like humans and talk like humans.  There is always a lesson at the end.

The Lion and the Mouse

A mouse ran over the lion’s nose while he was sleeping.  It woke him up!  He waited his moment and then flashed out his paw onto the mouse’s tail!  He let him go because he wouldn’t make much of a meal.  The mouse promised that he would pay the lion back.

The lion was stalking his prey, a zebra, at dusk.  He finally got caught by a hunter’s net!  It held him fast!  He roared!  And it echoed through the forest so that everyone could hear him, even mouse.  The mouse ran as fast as his little legs could carry him to the lion.  He helped him get out of the net by gnawing on the net with his teeth.  The lion broke free.

The mouse said, “You see, I told you I’d pay you back someday.”

“A little tiddly thing like you helping a king of beasts like me,” said the lion.

The lesson: KINDNESS IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN STRENGTH

It’s been a few weeks since I participated in the Well-Read Child meme.  Not that we haven’t been reading, because we have.  It’s 86˚ here today, and I’ve had one boy or another pressed up against me half the time, reading.

In this weeks bag, we’ve got:

Wynken, Blynken, and Nod, by Eugene Field, illustrated by Giselle Potter.

• This has been reviewed previously on The Well-Read Child.  What can I add?  Beautiful pictures, wonderful meter to the poem, magical theme.  The combination is like a beautiful dream just barely remembered.  We’ve been to the Netherlands, and have friends there, and Gamma even has a pair of wooden shoes, so we’ve been able to tie in many other themes as well.  I’ve read this so many times in the past three days that I have the poem memorized.

Anansi the Spider: A Tale From the Ashanti, by Gerald McDermott.

• This is another favorite, with both Gamma and Epsilon.  This is a retelling of a West African folktale about Anansi, the trickster.  The pictures are bold and vivid, and the storyline kept both my sons hooked.  I had a little problem with the language — I kept wanting to put it into “correct” grammar.  For example: “He split open Fish.”  And, “Very soft, Anansi came down.”  But the grammatical structure, I’m sure, was intentional, to help make the story as much as possible as if you were listening to an Ashanti storyteller firsthand.  This story also introduced us to yet another tale of how the moon came to be in the sky, ant to yet another god.  While writing this review, Gamma came over and begged me to read it to him, and is now sitting on the couch, flipping through the pages, naming all the sons and telling the story back to me.  Although Gamma tends to be into longer, chapter-type books now, this has been a real hit.

Monsieur Étourdi, by Roger Hargreaves.

• Each week, Gamma and I will be tackling at least one children’s book in French.  This week was one of the Mr. Men characters — in English it’s Mr. Forgetful.  This series, in English, would be more of interest to Epsilon, but in French, it’s just a bit beyond Gamma’s level, so it’s perfect.  Even I learned a couple verbs and phrases I didn’t know before!  The story is simple, but sweet: M. Étourdi forgets everything: what he needs at the store, what he dreamt about last night, even where his bathroom is in his own house!  He is  given an impossible task — to take a message to his neighbor, M. Pâturage.  (Mr. Fields, in English, I’d guess).  As you would expect, he messes up his task completely, but all ends well and happily.  Not really a tale for a kindergartener, but if you have a 3-4 year old, the English version would be quite amusing, I’m sure.

We’ve got other books in the bag, obviously, but these are the ones we felt noteworthy enough to blog about.  For Gamma, the hit of the week would have to be Anansi the Spider: A Tale From the Ashanti.

Gamma now has his very own booklist in the sidebar. So instead of my detailing what we’re reading this week, he’ll be reviewing one of our reads for you.

Ribsy, reviewed by Gamma, age 5

Ribsy went for a ride with Henry Huggins to the shopping center. He wanted to ride in the new car. But at the shopping center, he got mixed up and got back in the wrong car. The car was full of girls and they had their hands all over him. They took him home and gave him a bubble bath. He didn’t like it. He ran away from the girls and a lady took him in. She was old and nice, and liked pretty stuff. But she dressed him up as a man and he didn’t like because he was a dog, not a person. So when she had the door open, he ran away again.

He found a school and thought he might find Henry here. He didn’t, but there were other kids, and Ribsy liked kids. The kids were nice to him and fed him and played with him. He tried to chase a squirrel in the classroom and had to leave the school. Ribsy went to a football game next, even though there was a NO DOGS ALLOWED sign. He tripped the boy with the ball and made him lose the game. A boy named Joe says Ribsy belongs to him and takes him home. His picture is in the paper and and the telephone rings. It’s Henry Huggins! When he hears Henry’s voice he runs all over the place and he’s very excited! He runs away, trying to find Henry! But Henry isn’t there, he’s just on the phone.

He meets another boy, Larry, and Larry takes him into an apartment building and up an elevator. Ribsy doesn’t like it — it felt like his stomach was staying behind. The manager of the building is mean and Larry puts Ribsy out on the fire escape so she won’t see him. Ribsy is very frightened and uncomfortable. He barks and Henry Huggins finds him. He was down below driving by! Henry and his family save him and Ribsy goes home. He is very happy!

I liked this book because Ribsy is a good dog and Henry is a good boy. My mom makes the people have different voices and it’s fun to read.

The End

There are some boys that love to listen to the Laura Ingalls Wilder series, and the other good reads most moms remember reading as girls. Gamma is not one of those boys. Mostly, he loves non-fiction. Space exploration, dinosaurs, the history of trains… he loves that kind of stuff, and I love to supply it and watch his interests grow and change. But I also love to curl up on our reading couch with a good work of fiction and get engrossed in a story. I’m on a mission to find quality literature that will appeal to my growing boys.

Jill at The Well-Read Child hosts a weekly meme highlighting book choices for kids. I’m hoping to find some great reads for my boys among the participants. Here’s what we’re reading this week:

Leave That Cricket Be, Alan Lee, by Barbara Ann Porte, pictures by Donna Ruff, reviewed by Gamma

Alan Lee hears a cricket in the house and wants to find it and keep it as a pet. He looked for it for days but couldn’t find it. One day, he trapped it in one of his shoes and he covered it and put the cricket in a glass jar. But the cricket wouldn’t sing because it was sad. Alan Lee was sad. This made me sad, too. A few days later he let the cricket free from the jar and it sang. The end.

The Curious Garden, by Peter Brown

Our second time checking this one out of the library — one of Gamma’s favorites. A young boy named Liam, living in a city without any parks or gardens or greenery of any kind, finds the tiniest bits of green life popping up on an old, abandoned elevated railway. He nurses the garden back to health, and brings nature back to the other city residents as well. Nice story, interesting pictures — probably the only time my boy has ever requested a book filled with pictures of flowers!

Ribsy, by Beverly Cleary

We’ve just finished chapter one of this classic. Ribsy is lost and separated from his beloved Henry Huggins. Gamma is desperate to know what happens next?! Last week we read another Cleary classic, The Mouse and the Motorcycle, which really kept him enthralled. I hope Ribsy will have the same effect. Tune in next week to find out!

The Little Red Caboose, by Marian Potter, pictures by Tibor Gergely

I have to give Epsilon some time here as well. He would be quite content to sit and read this for hours at a time. We reserve it as our special, before-bed book. It’s a charming book I remember from my childhood. The little red caboose, who feels unloved and unrecognized, saves the day. Proof that being littlest and last doesn’t stop you from doing great, important things.

And that’s what we’re reading this week… along with a host of DK books and old favorites!