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Living Books: Overwhelmed with Choices, Please Help Me Decide…
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I have a large collection of living books already on hand (some owned for years and others recently added because I got a little carried away with Living Book lists) but, I know we can only cover so many in one year. Please help me decide which ones might be best for this year…6 titles or so. My daughter will be 7 on Oct. 8th & she can read independently on a 2nd-3rd grade level so I figured I would read to her most of the time and have her narrate and sometimes have her read a portion if she is able. (My son will be 2 next week, so I hope o have him play quietly in the same room during readings and maybe he will absorb some of it). We will be doing SCM History Module 1 this year. Here is the list of the books we currently own and have not yet read….
ALL OF THE FOLLOWING ARE UNABRIDGED VERSIONS….
The Little House Series (7 books) + The Little House Song Book, Cook Book, Craft Book & Sewing Book
The Secret Garden
Beatrix Potter – The Complete Tales (we have only read Peter Rabbit thus far out of this beautiful book)
Chronicles of Narnia (7 books)
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
Through the Looking Glass
Nurse Matilda – The Collected Tales *I am not really sure if this is a living book…any thoughts?”
Heidi
Pollyanna
A Little Princess
At The Back of the North Wind
Winnie the Pooh – The Complete Tales & Poems
Pilgrims Progress
Pilgrims Progress 2
Oliver Twist
David Copperfield
A Tale of Two Cities
Great Expectations
Gulliver’s Travels
Anne of Green Gables Series (8 Books)
OTHER… I’m wondering if I should seek out the complete unabridged versions of the following… Aesop’s Fables, Grimms Fairy Tales and Andersons Fairy tales…if they even exist?
Treasury of Bedtime Stories (includes adaptions of various fairy tales (Grimms, Anderson & traditional stories). We have read all of these already. (Keep or Sell???)
A Treasury of Children’s Literature (Includes Grimms, Andersons Aesop’s Fables, Mother Goose Rhymes, Children’s Classics, A Child’s Garden of Verses (we have the book)) – Many say “retold by Shiela Black”, full of lovely illustrations. We have read some but, not most of this book. (Keep or Sell???)
A Treasury of Mother Goose (Keeping because it’s the exact version I grew up reading…same illustrations and all…figured I could work this in with poetry since I ave yet to read all of it to my daughter).
Admittedly, due to my poor public school education, I personally have never read any of these with the exception of The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe. So, I’m really excited to also read some fine literature right along with my daughter.
Anyways…. which titles would you choose for this year? And are there any you would suggest for this age that I don’t already own?
You’ve got some great books! I would start with the following:
Winnie the Pooh (we actually love the audio version bc he does great voices)
Beattrix potter
The little house books (this series could take all year!)
Happy reading!
I agree exactly with the PP. Many of the books in your list are wonderful but would be better with older kids. I am not a big fan of treasuries and would ditch those.
Nebby
I would spread little house over a few years to live with Laura longer. Winnie the Pooh is a must and we love the full cast audio with Dame. Judi Dench. Beatrix Potter for sure and The Secret Garden. Save all of Dickens til she’s older. Save also Gulliver’s Travels. Work through the others savoring as you go.
I agree with the comments above! You have a great selection of books started.
One thing I am doing is trying to pre-read many of the books we have or that I’ve seen on other people’s booklists. I don’t have that much time for reading, so I use the podcast app on my phone and listen to audiobooks while I do chores. Many of the books I want to read are available through librivox. I then make a note or two about each one, so I can remember later when it comes time to choose the next books. It also helps me figure out which books are worth buying, and which I think we can just use the library for.
Thanks for the feedback ladies! Missceegee… I found several of the full cast Pooh audio on Amazon. Do you happen to know if this one includes ALL of the stories or do I need to purchase all of the different CD’s? The listing does not seem to clearly indicate which stories are included on the 2 CD’s in this listing…
And is this the same thing just with a different picture?…
The other CD’s I see (all with the same cast) are…
Pooh Goes Visiting and other stories
Tigger Comes to the Forest and other stories
The House at Pooh Corner and other stories
Piglet Meets a Heffalump and other stories
Pooh Invents a New Game and other stories
So will I need to order ALL of those or do the ones in the link include all o them already? So confused. haha
I recommend checking out the Pooh audiobook at the library first. We did not care for it, but everyone is different. We did love the audio for Little House and the library may have them. We are spreading them out over several years. I agree to read Beatrix Potter now. And the Complete Pooh includes poetry. I recommend A Little Princess and Heidi and then watch those Shirley Temple movies for fun.
Thank you Wings2Fly. I actually did find (& request) this version from my Library… http://www.amazon.com/Winnie—Pooh-Milne/dp/0307706125/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1408850351&sr=1-2&keywords=winnie+the+pooh+audio+Dench
that way I can see how many stories are on it. I listened to some samples on Amazon and liked it thus far.
And LibriVox is new to me. What an awesome resource! I found some poetry and Shakespeare readings as well.
Also, correction… My Little House set is 9 books, not 7. I am so excited that I just found the unabridged Audio Books at my Library that I can also use.
Miscaggee, how do you spread it out over years? Do you just take your time and go straight through in order or do you read one book, then switch to something else and then go to the next book after that? Do you combine the audio version at all? If so, how? Do you read one day and listen another day? Or read an entire book then listen to an entire book?
This year our readings looks like this:
Monday / Wednesday- little house
Tuesday thirsday- Winnie the Pooh
After we finish a little house books we will read a different book. Probably Stuart little. We read charlottes web between the last 2. After Winnie the Pooh we will read Beatrix potter.
I only put one or two Little House on for each year. We had only this Pooh audio for years – http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/184032001X/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?qid=1408882070&sr=8-1&pi=SX200_QL40#productDescription_secondary_view_pageState_1408882089665 . We’ve now bought several others from audible bc they are faves with ds4. We love this version and no other comes close for us. I love librivox when we get a good reader, but some readers can be disappointing.
Blessedmommy, here’s another idea for the Little House books. My daughter and I read all of the Little House books when she was 6 and 7, I think it took about two years. When we completed all the books, we took a girls trip (the two of us plus my mom, who had also read the books) to Mansfield, MO where Laura lived as an adult and wrote the books. We went during their Wilder Days festival and those are some of the best memories we have together. We will always remember that special time together and how we were all united by a common love of the little house books. There are about 5 different locations where you can visit her different homes, there are museums. We got to hear someone play Pa’s actual fiddle, saw an outdoor play about her life and how she wrote the books, we met an older lady who knew her, saw two of her homes, watched a parade. Super fun! I hope to read them again when my boys are older and take another trip as a family in several years, maybe we’ll visit a different location next time.
I think we read Pooh and Beattrix Potter scattered throughout b/c sometimes we just needed a break from Little House.
Enjoy reading whatever books you decide on!
We read or listen to one or two Little House books, in order, per year with other books in between.
While trying not to make the thread all about Little House, I have to mention that we also enjoyed 3 music CD’s from the Pa’s Fiddle project.
If you have time I recommend that you start reading at least one of the Dicken’s novels for yourself. His books take some time to get through but they are wonderful reading. David Copperfield is a favorite.
Thanks for all of this wonderful feedback ladies! I LOVE the idea of taking a trip after we finish the series. Plus I have all of the Little House extras… crafts, sewing, recipes and songs to enhance the Little House experience too. After reading all of the great suggestions, I’m thinking I will focus on Pooh, Potter, Little House (1-2 books), Secret Garden & possibly Pollyanna or Heidi. I have been itching to read Little House myself so, I think I may start with that first. My plan is to do 4 days of literature reading & 2 days of Shakespeare reading. So this is the literature rotation I’m pondering…
Trimester 1:
Little House for 3 Weeks
Pooh for 3 Weeks (Little House extras during leisure time)
Little House for 3 Weeks
Potter for 3 Weeks (Little House Extras)
Trimester 2:
Little House for 3 Weeks
Secret Garden for 3 Weeks (Little House Extras)
Little House for 3 weeks
Pooh for 3 weeks (Little House extras)
Trimester 3:
Little House for 3 weeks
Potter for 3 Weeks (little house extras)
Little House for 3 weeks
Secret Garden for 3 weeks (little house extras)
Summer:
A rotation of Little House & Heidi and/or Pollyanna
Does this sound okay or will all of the jumping around get confusing for a 7 year old?
Last question (for now)… I know lessons at this age should be kept to about 15 -20 min. So, should I just plan to read what I can (be it a paragraph or an entire chapter) for 15 min & have my daughter narrate for 5? Or read for 5, narrate for 5 and repeat?
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