How I Stumbled into Something Wonderful

About three years ago, when I lived in Baltimore, my friend, Angela, and I used to run in the mornings.  Two of my kids were in school at the time (Spice was in 1st grade and Bud was in pre-school).  Angela had just decided to homeschool because she was not pleased with the teacher her son would have in the 1st grade.  At the time, I knew I couldn't ever homeschool, but I was fascinated with what she was doing and really enjoyed hearing her plans and what sorts of things she was trying.  She inspired me to do a better job creating a learning environment in my home even though my kids were in school.

A friend and I took the kids to a duck pond on Monday

One of the things that she mentioned was that she wanted her kids to be educated from the classics.  She wanted them to learn math from the great mathematicians of all time, about the government from the words of those who founded it, about history from those who lived it, about literature by reading the great classics etc.  I knew I had greatly missed that in my education - I got excerpts and bits and pieces from textbooks, but I hadn't read any of these people's words.

I've been surprised as I've started trying to get this type of education myself.  Suddenly, I'll realize something like, "Julius Ceasar wrote a book?!?  Why didn't anyone ever tell me?"  "We actually have the words of Albert Einstein?!?  How great it would be to read what went on in his mind!"  (I haven't read from either of these by the way, I was just exited to learn that they were out there.  I have found too many other things that I have been excited about that I have been trying to read first).  

Anyway, I decided at that time that I wanted my kids to have this type of education as well, so I started looking into reading Spice some classics.  I wanted her to start being exposed to great thoughts and words.  I started with The Secret Garden.  I was already reading little books to her at bedtime, so instead of pulling one of those out, I told her we would just read a chapter of this bigger book every night.  She was exited about it and we got started.

After a while, other little people started trickling in to hear the story.  I told them that they were allowed to stay in the room as long as they didn't interrupt (unless they had a question about the book).  They were all excited every night to see what would happen next.

Thus, Family Reading Time was born.

I didn't think about it at the time, but this is what families used to do in the evening before the the radio was invented, and later the TV.  Evenings were a time for stories, bonding, and being inspired.

All I knew is that I had stumbled into something wonderful!  The books we read were just as exiting to me as they were to them and we were all learning from them.  We were bonding as we shared the experience together.  It made a perfect ending to our days.  It gave us something to look forward to together.  

I remember one particular evening, Bud was 5 and we had just finished reading Summer of the Monkeys.  He asked, "It's over?!?"  

"Yes" I said, "That was the end of the book."

"Noooo!"

Then he grabbed the book, hugged it to his chest, laid on his bed, and cried.

At that point, I knew he would never take reading for granted.

Since then, I have heard many, many great reasons for having a family reading time.  One great one that I recently learned about at the TJEd conference came from Andrew Pudewa.

He said that children do not necessarily learn to be great writers from reading. Why? Because they often read too fast to really digest the syntax, the words, the structure. They need a "database of sophisticated language". In an average house a child hears most of his language from the television (25 hours/week on average).  The #2 source is their peers (interestingly, children use the least sophisticated language when placed with children that are within 2 years of their own age.  When they are with older children, they use more advanced language (to talk like them), when they are with younger children, they use more advance language as well (because they see themselves as the more mature child).   The #3 source is parents and "other busy adults".   We are often speaking in short sentences when we speak to our children because we are busy.  The #4 source is books.

The only problem is that children are often reading a book so fast in their head that they are not taking in the language, they often skim through the words.  This is why it is so vital that we read out loud to our children.  In fact, reading out loud to children is the #1 predictor of good writing skills.

It's always nice when you find out that something you are doing with your children, that you happen to LOVE, is also very good for them. (By the way, the other thing he said that was important for good writing skills was for children to memorize poems or passages).

We've been reading books as a family for close to three years now so we've been able to read several great books.  I couldn't list all of them, but here are some of my favorites:

Heidi
The Little House in the Prairie series
The Secret Garden
Summer of the Monkeys
The Indian in the Cupboard
A Door in a Wall
A Wrinkle in Time
The first few Harry Potter books
Fablehaven (we've read the first two)
The Chronicles of Narnia
The Hobbit
The Five Little Peppers and How they Grew
Caddie Woodlawn

My friend, Deanna, inspired me to try something a little more advanced in language so we'll be trying Oliver Twist next. What are some of your favorite family books?

For mother's day I asked for 2 new books shelves.

We've had the 2 tall bookshelves for a quite a

while but we were running out of room (I have been

giving away boxes of books, but there are still some

I can't part with).  I spent most of Tuesday trying to

 figure out how to match the smaller bookshelves

with the taller ones.  I had to get creative, but 

I am happy with my new wall of books!