And Now for Some Book Recommendations...

I should stick with what I know, but sometimes I can't help dabbling in a bit of social commentary.

I was just writing with my friend and recommending some books his daughter might like and thought that I should go ahead and post what I recommended. Its amazing how quickly I forget what we've read and loved in the last few years. I used to read to my kids a lot, then I stopped because of the protests of the now 3 year-old. I'm just now getting back into the swing of reading. I love it -- its my favorite part of homeschooling (okay, its really my only part of 'homeschooling' other than finding resources).

So, here are my most recent recommendations:

Charlie Needs a Cloak by Tomie dePaola -- about Charlie, a shepherd, and it takes you through the process of making a cloak -- shearing the sheep, spinning, dyeing the wool, weaving, sewing. Whats also nice, is that it takes you through the seasons of the year, so it reinforces that learning. (Sorry, Mike, I got the title wrong and misspelled the author's name)

Pancakes, Pancakes by Eric Carle -- Jack wants pancakes and he has to cut the wheat, get it milled, get eggs, milk, etc, all the ingredients of pancakes.

I love those books because its neat to learn how things are made.

How to Bake and Apple Pie and See the World by Marjorie Priceman -- a trip around the world to get ingredients for an apple pie.

My DH loves The Magic Wings and another book, The Seven Chinese Brothers (I find it a bit violent, but my daughter has always enjoyed it). Oh, if you're into Zen, try anything by Jon J. Muth.

If you're interested in Latin, you might want to see if you can find any Roman myths -- though I think it might be easier to find Greek myths, but you could probably work in that the Romans copied the gods and gave them different names. We have a few books about this but haven't started reading them yet. Fairy tales can be fun, too -- we get non-Disneyfied ones, often in storybook treasuries with gorgeous illustrations.

A great resource for excellent books is Sonlight. They sell homeschool curricula with 'living books' but you can order individual titles. I find the on-line catalog hard to use, but recommend their printed catalog. I have great affection for Sonlight -- though I don't use their curriculum, when I felt panicky about homeschooling a few years ago, I find great comfort in their offerings. I did order parts of their Pre-K curriculum and I love the books, but I found the schedule a bit stifling. Still, I should throw some business their way by buying some of their books.