Our Homemade Reading Challenges for 2012

Posted on January 10, 2012 by Karen

So maybe if I get ambitious I’ll try to figure out how to make a fancy banner for each of our homemade reading challenges. Never could find anything good for the kids, but they liked the idea. So I told them of some of the ones I’d found and we talked and discussed and thought and finally modified for age and interest and personality. Now this being the first time we’ve tried anything like this, and a year being a very long time at their ages, I’m not going to guarantee we’ll get these done. But they know the lists will be online and we’ll print a blank one for the wall and go from there.

D’s Reading Challenge
A combination of quantity, trying new genres (any new genres!) and reading more than listening.

24 books
At least 6 something other than fantasy
Not more than 8 as audiobooks

1. Pokemon Back and White by Hidenori Kusaka
2. Justice Society of America by Marc Guggenheim
3. Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Racza and Peter H. Reynolds
4. Avatar: The Last Airbender 1 by Michael Dante DiMartino
5. Avatar: The Last Airbender 2 by Michael Dante DiMartino
6. Avatar: The Last Airbender 3 by Michael Dante DiMartino
7. The Fantastic Four: Favorite Son by Fred Van Lente
8. New X-Men: Childhood’s End by Craig Kyle and Chris Yost
9. Paws Off, Cheddarface! by Geronimo Stilton
10. History Detectives: Ancient Greece by Philip Ardagh
11. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
12. New X Men: Here Comes Tomorrow by Grant Morrison
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24.

C’s Reading Challenge
A combination of reading more to himself and listening to longer chapter books in audiobook or read-aloud.

24 books
12 shorter read to himself
12 longer audiobooks or parent read

1. The Knight at Dawn by Mary Pope Osborne
2. A Poor Excuse for a Dragon by Geoffrey Hayes
3. Caravan: Choose Your Own Adventure by R.A. Montgomery (again and again and again)
4. Star Wars: Star Pilot by Laura Buller
5. Pirates Past Noon by Mary Pope Osborne
6. Guyku: A Year of Haiku for Boys by Bob Racza and Peter H. Reynolds
7. Bionicle: Journey of Takanuva by Greg Farshtey
8. Lego Space Adventures: Mars Alien Attack! by Allison Lasieur
9. Night of the Ninjas by Mary Pope Osborne
10. Help! A Vampire’s Coming! by Abby Klein
11.Let the Good Times Roll with Pirate Pete and Pirate Joe by A.E. Cannon
12. Midnight on the Moon by Mary Pope Osborne
13. Harry Pottter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (listen)
14.
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23.
24.

B’s Reading Challenge
Just plain working on her reading. Because listening is fun!

104 books
52 read to herself
52 audiobooks or parent read

Reading
1. Jack and Jill and Big Dog Bill by Martha Weston
2. Biscuit and the Baby by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
3. The Van by Holly Keller
4. Big Egg by Molly Coxe
5. Hot Dog by Molly Coxe
6. Bunbun, The Middle One by Sharon Pierce McCullough

 

Listening (plus everything on the 1001 Children’s Books list below)
1. Skippyjon Jones in the Doghouse by Judy Schachner
2. Limelight Larry by Leigh Hodgkinson
3. Agent Amelia: Ghost Diamond by Michael Broad
4. Agent Amelia: Zombie Cows by Michael Broad
5. Agent Amelia: Hypno Hounds by Michael Broad
6. Agent Amelia: Spooky Ballet by Michael Broad
7. Eloise by Kay Thompson
8. How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz
9. Nina, Nina Star Ballerina by Jane O’Connor
10. Amelia Bedelia and the Baby by Peggy Parish
11. The Smallest Cow in the World by Katherine Paterson
12. Teach Us, Amelia Bedelia by Peggy Parish
13. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

 

Family Challenge
Two ideas for challenges for all of us to embrace.

I found a challenge called 1001 Books To Read Before You Die based on a book by the same name. There is corresponding children’s book, “1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up“, I thought we could use as a family to see just how many we can read during the year.

1. The Little Engine that Could by Watty Piper (1)
2. Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown (7)
3. Rosie’s Walk by Pat Hutchins (11)
4. Good Dog, Carl by Alexandra Day (24)
5. Elmer by David McGee (27)
6. Little Toot by Hardie Gramatky (55)
7. The Story About Ping by Marjorie Flack (51)
8. We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen (28)
9. Eloise by Kay Thompson (64)
10. The Little House by by Virginia Lee Burton (59)
11. Each Peach Pear Plum by Janet and Allan Ahlberg (20)
12. Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel by Virgina Lee Burton (57)
13. In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (82)
14. Bedtime for Frances by Russell Hoban (9)
15. Make Way For Ducklings by Robert McCloskey (3)
16. Curious George by H. A. Rey (58)
17. The Little Red Lighthouse and the Great Gray Bridge by Hildegarde Swift and Lynd Ward (60)
18. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr (77)
19. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss (66)
20. Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss (70)
21. Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans (56)
22. Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina
23. Crictor by Tomi Ungerer
24. Freight Train by Donald Crews
25. The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
26. The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
27. Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
28. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
29. Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus
30. The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
31. The House That Jack Built by Diana Mayo (different version than they list, but pretty standard)
32. Stone Soup by Marcia Brown (again, a different author than the list, but a start story)
33. I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
34. You’re All My Favorite by Sam McBratney
35. The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter
36. Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber
37. A Pocket for Corduroy by Don Freeman
38. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling
39. The Boy Who Grew Flowers by Jen Wojtowicz
40. Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith
41. Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner
42. Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson

 

I also found a reading challenge to read banned and challenged books. Every year during banned book week we look up the list and see what we’ve read, but we’ve never tried to actually read things off the list. I think this year we’re going to make an effort to see if we can cross any off.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling (everyone)
And Tango Makes Three by Justin Richardson (everyone)
In the Night Kitchen by Maurice Sendak (everyone)
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (D)

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Welcome to the Jungle

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Karen

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Six hours – yes, six – of dress rehearsal on Monday and four Thursday. After working toward this weekend’s performances since January, we’re almost there. More than memorizing lines or getting to perform on stage, the sense of camaraderie with this company is incredible. In between theater games and rehearsing scenes, it’s the hugging, singing, playing cards and ds’s, and joking.

This is D’s second performance with the AZ Homeschool Theatre; C and B’s first. Other than the director, the entire theater company is comprised of homeschoolers – from the script writer to the stage manager, the assistant director to lights and sound board, and all the actors. The crew ranges from 6 – 18, with the younger kids in most the acting rolls for this production. It’ll be back to big guys in the fall, usually something Shakespearean.

So this evening we’ll get facepaint and costumes on and go have a lot of fun.

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Weekend

Posted on May 7, 2012 by Karen

The kids look forward to the weekend all week; they basically refer to it as ‘dad’s days off.’ Yesterday started nice and slow before we headed out for Free Comic Book Day. We ran into friends at the comic book store. Kids had a good time choosing comics, getting pictures with a robotic dalek and watching the Ghost Busters. We headed over the the nearby used bookstore afterward and hung out with our friends where an impromptu sleepover somehow got created.

Home for what was supposed to be naps, since they went to bed about midnight the night before, but turned into a Phineas and Ferb marathon instead. Once their friend arrived it was Pokemon craziness – ds games, cards and movie.

Sunday started late after two late nights. Playing continued with dad made pancakes. Since dad had gotten up with them, he napped and I read some books off the 1001 Children’s Books challenge. The Boy Who Grew Flowers by Jen Wojtowicz, Math Curse by Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith, Skippyjon Jones by Judy Schachner, and Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. Then they all headed outside to ride their scooters for a while. Once they came back inside, C took a turn trying to make a lego stop motion movie. The very long weekend ended with everyone taking turns picking a tv show to watch.

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Friday

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Karen

Since Friday is usually our only day with nothing to do, we’ve been trying to go on field trips. There was a tour of the state capital we thought about attending with plans to head over to the Arizona Science Center afterword (our membership expires this month – eeek!). Then we got the email reminding us of our homeschool group’s geography co-op was meeting. Rather than head all the way to Phoenix, we decided to head to the much closer Phoenix Zoo.

Since we only had a little bit of time before geography and before it was too hot to wander, we decided to go see the animals each of the kids will be in the Jungle Book. The zoo doesn’t have any Indian wolves, but does have Mexican wolves. So we wandered through the reptiles and up the Arizona trail. After, well not quite spotting the wolves because they were hiding in the shade, we went over to see the elephants. There was one elephant out but she was just standing next to the building and we decided it might be a bit late and all the animals were heading toward shade. The orangutans too were laying under their play structures in the shade. Not much animal seeing went on but we had a good time wandering. We hit the splash pad last and got cooled off it before heading home.

After a quick lunch, we headed over to geography co-op where we were working on reading maps. The kids answer to how to get anywhere was pretty much check gps so this may take a bit of work ;) We found everyone’s homes that were there on a group map. On family maps we looked for places we frequented; we looked for the Arizona Science Center, the Phoenix Zoo, the Arizona Museum of Natural History, the school where their enrichment program is held, play practice and traced the route to friends’ houses.

We ended the night with a trip to the Gilbert Riparian preserve for a birthday bonfire.  The kids had a great time eating smores and running with with glow sticks around the camp site.  One of the craziest things about our homeschool group is the range of ages – there were kids from about 6 to 18 hanging out. About 40 kids played tag in the dark.  We never seem to make it to the scary ghost story part of the night, but it was the perfect setting for it.  Finally meandered home about 11 and crawled in to bed. It was definitely a full day.

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Thursday

Posted on May 5, 2012 by Karen

Okay, so I’m not getting them up on the day, but I am trying to get one up for each day. Thursday was…boring. Not much to write so it just sort of didn’t happen.

Thursday. Kids went to their enrichment program. B had a field trip to the Children’s Museum of Phoenix; she said it was very fun. Afterward we met some friends at a nearby park. We’re hanging on to about 90 and there was a breeze, which is great for us. This is the getting to be the end of playing outside before we hibernate for summer.

We got home from the park just in time for dinner. D worked on a stop action lego movie he’s trying to make while the other two played. Then we read two more books from our 1001 Children’s Books You Must Read Before You Grow Up reading challenge (you can also find the list on Goodreads). We read The Tale of Peter Rabbit by Beatrix Potter; Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile by Bernard Waber; and, A Pocket for Corduroy by Don Freeman.

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Wednesday

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Karen

See? Fourth day in a row – woohoo. Today was supposed to be park day; we should have been running around with squirt guns. But after the day started with sibling bickering they decided we should have a mellow home day, and who am I to argue?

So the kids read. B is reading the stories in Frog and Toad Are Friends; C is reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe; D is reading The Ranger’s Apprentice. Then the little two watched Word Girl (yay for Netflix).

Then we had a tea tasting. Why? Well because two wanted tea, but disagreed about the type, and the other has never found one he likes. So we dug out all the tea pots and made green, Irish breakfast (black), peppermint and chamomile – we ran out of teapots before we go to any of my white teas ;) – and did a taste test. D still likes peppermint, B likes everything but green, and C liked green best but could do without any of them.

All three sat down to do some Khan Academy math next. The minute they brought the page up, our internet went down. Next idea? Board games. So they played Sum Swamp and Monopoly.

I realized we hadn’t read anything specifically on our homemade 1001 Books Challenge lately. So I perused the shelves while they played Monopoly to see what I could find. We own a startling number of the books, but we’re in the middle of switching rooms around and painting while much of the furniture is in disarray so owning and finding are two different things. I did manage to find several though.

Freight Train by Donald Crews
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf
Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! by Mo Willems
The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein
Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus

Then we all played Lego Minotaur together. For every six steps forward, it’s being eaten by the Minotaur (complete with nomnom sound affects) or a hedge gets thrown up in your way. That one got to be a little long. But in the end I prevailed…and was just glad it was done.

Then back to some reading. We got through a few before daddy got home from work.

The Paper Bag Princess by Robert Munsch
The House That Jack Built by Diana Mayo (different version than they list, but pretty standard)
Stone Soup by Marcia Brown (again, a different author than the list, but a start story – we have at least two versions on our shelves)

Once dad was home, we decided to try our luck at Joe’s Real BBQ’s annual customer appreciation day. The actually give out a free meal once a year. We tend to forget or decide the lines will probably be too long but this year we headed down. We spent 40 minutes in line passing our phones back and forth playing DrawSomething. But we finally got in for dinner. We met some friends coming in as we were heading out a talked a bit while they waited in line.

By the time we got home it was late, but I had a request for some books before bed so I read two more.

I Will Not Ever Never Eat a Tomato by Lauren Child
You’re All My Favorite by Sam McBratney

And since You’re All My Favorite seemed a perfect way to end a day began in bickering, that wrapped it up.

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Tuesday

Posted on May 2, 2012 by Karen

Tuesday – and I’m phone posting again. Yesterday was the kids twice-a-week homeschool enrichment program.

B is doing a unit on toads and frogs, and finishing up desert and rainforest. She brought home seeds in a transparent planter and one covered in black paper to simulate the desert and rainforest.

C learned about Egyptian hieroglyphs in Archeology. And he worked on finishing his Pokemon version of Jack and the Beanstalk in Popup Books (seriously, book oragami…how fun is that?) Spanish, Photoshop, and PE got, “I don’t know; stuff? I don’t remember.”

D stayed home and spent the day reading about mods for Minecraft and learning to install them. I know know way too much about Dr. Who mods with weeping angels. He also looked up how to do special effects for videos.

A quick trip to Home Depot for paint…or not so quick as we had to check out paint colors, brushes, specialty paints (hot pink glitter paint! Thanks Martha Stewart), colored duct tape and plants. All that to grab one gallon of paint.

Once we were home the kids went out to ride scooters with our neighbors. Then they read a bit and watched some Word Girl. C skyped with a friend, while D looked up more on special effects and their sister went to bed. The boys ended their day watching Pokemon.

And that’s a full Tuesday.

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Monday

Posted on May 1, 2012 by Karen

So trying to blog every day for a while…day 2 (hey, that’s a streak). Monday morning was science co-op. We should have headed over to learn about salt (we’ve been working with elements, chemistry, etc), but the kids just could get moving. Instead we spent the morning reading – where we finally, Finally, FINALLY finished Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. I’ve been reading it to B and C; it’s is my, perhaps, trillionth time reading it and, I believe, third time reading it aloud. It has taken months because invariably one wants to go bed when the other wants to read or we stay up too late so we read something shorter instead. The kids read to themselves as well.

The kids have also been asked to look up interesting facts about their animals for the play they are in, so we looked up wolves, orangutans, and elephants. Did you know elephants’ trunks have somewhere between 40- and 150,000 different muscles? Or that the Indian wolf (which would have been the wolves in the Jungle Book) are a smaller than arctic wolves and a subspecies of the gray wolf. Then we headed to play practice. We’re getting down to it. Only a few weeks to go. Performances are in less that three weeks. Lines are memorized but we still need to find shoes for their costumes.

On the way home from play practice we stopped by an outdoor mall. We bought our summer movie tickets – morning children’s movies for super cheap. They’ve usually seen them, but they like going to the movies and it gets us out of the house when in summer we tend to want to hibernate. We headed into Cost Plus looking for Torani syrups – it is getting to be Italian soda season – but they were all out, serious, having just had a big sale we missed. We did have a great time going through their old fashioned candy though. We ended up with a Charleston Chew, Rocky Road, Necco Wafers and a Big Cherry. We ate our candy fast since we are definitely in candy melting weather, then wandered through Hot Topic looking at tshirts and silliness.

As we pulled into the driveway, the boys next door were out playing, so the kids hopped out to play with them for the evening. Play, dinner, bath/shower, bed. Day complete :)

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Being Social

Posted on April 30, 2012 by Karen

So I’d planned on getting back to daily posting, at least for a while, to truly get an idea of how we spend our days rather than just the busy points. But, you know, I usually think of what to post as we’re out and about and then get busy at home and forget. So…starting today let’s see how I do.

But first I’ll start with our social weekend. Saturday morning the boys headed next door to play xbox with our neighbors. While B hung out and helped us paint the living room (the boys helped with the other color a couple of weeks ago). In the afternoon, we went to a friends birthday party. Kids had a great time with tons of kids, face painting, crazy balloon creation and cotton candy in the park, followed by swimming at their house. About six hours later we meandered home for the night. Sunday started with the kids on scooters outside with all the neighborhood kids, then next door for a bit of xbox again. Then everyone went swimming with friends for the entire afternoon.

One weekend, about 30 kids, three different groups, and that’s why I shake my head when people say they can’t homeschool because their children like to be around other kids and wouldn’t want to stay home alone all day.

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Field Trip Friday

Posted on April 27, 2012 by Karen

With play practice and D&D on

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Monday’s, homeschool enrichment on Tuesday, park day with our homeschool group on Wednesday, and homeschool enrichment on

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Thursday, Friday is our completely free day. Fridays are supposed to be our field trip day but frequently the idea of having no where to go and nothing to do turns into Lego/tv day. Today, however, we managed to venture forth.

After spending the morning reading and doing a bit of math (and playing with Legos and

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watching tv), we finally headed out to the Arizona Museum of Natural History. We spent some time with the dinosaurs and the new exhibit on flying dinosaurs. Then we headed

 

through the old territorial jail cells. Fleeing the overcrowding of school field trips in the courtyard, we headed back inside and wandered through the Hohokam and peoples of the

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Southwest exhibits (personally I just think they like saying atlatl). We spent most our time in the hands-on areas today- putting together puzzles, turning cranks to watch the earth crust shift, matching plants to

pollinator. But no trip to AzNHM is complete without panning for gold.

Once we left the museum we wandered through downtown Mesa. We headed into the comic book store to look around and grab some drinks and ended up talking about BBC science fiction shows with one of the employees. And where we happily discovered May 5th is free comic book day- I’d totally forgotten :)

 

 

 

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Busy

Posted on April 23, 2012 by Karen

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While it isn’t why I haven’t been writing (computer down, moved photos, just general confusion), we have been busy. Today we started earlier than usual to go see the special Van Gogh exhibit at the Arizona Science Center with a homeschool field trip group. (All right, trying this again. I was trying to blog from my phone and someone posted two sentences :) So, yes, Arizona Science Center. We had a good time and it was nice to run into friends to wander with. Kids love it there; it’s one of their favorite museums. We found a new area – well, new to 20120424-093922.jpgus anyway – about the brain and mind. There was a biofeedback game where the person with the calmest mind made a ball roll toward their opponent; kids thought that was amazing. The Van Gogh special exhibit wasn’t what we thought it would be. They made a big deal out of it being at the science center rather than the art museum because it was so multi-sensory. But really it was just his art on big screens while music played. I was surprised the kids made it almost 30 minutes in the crowded room. But overall the museum was excellent as always.
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We left the science center and headed to lunch. Ate outdoors in the sun; we’re running out of time for that since we’ve crawled into the high 90s. Then the kids had play practice. Only a month until the performances. Need to find them their ballet/jazz shoes for their costumes soon. Kids are really enjoying it.

We should have had dungeons and dragons after play practice, but the kids were exhausted. We’d had a sleepover Saturday night (or a very little sleep awake over), then a run around birthday party Sunday, followed by leaving the house before we’re often awake this morning. So rather than be out from 7:30 to 7:30, we headed home to have some mellow time.

 

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