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The Golden Fleece or A Wonder Book?
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We are starting day 5 of Module 2 tomorrow, and I haven’t decided yet if I should have my 4th grade son read The Golden Fleece or A Wonder Book. I have both books, and I have read the first assignments for both. It would be too much for him to read both books, so I’d like to choose one as the module suggests. I prefer the writing in A Wonder Book, but I’m afraid it will be too difficult for him as there are so many new words in it for him.
Any advice?
Thank you!
Yvette
A Wonder Book is available free as an audiobook on librivox.org – if you are worried about the words, maybe you could let him listen while following along if you really prefer the style of writing – he would hear the pronunciation while picking up the meaning, etc. without all the extra work of trying to decode it.
Haha – you’re right. Having a forgetful moment again. Darn. I’m sorry. I was trying to hunt up an audio to any of those 3 the other day, and mixed it up in my head when I was replying earlier.
We are reading The Golden Fleece right now (I am reading it aloud to my children due to learning issues) and the chapters are QUITE long. I was suprised that we were to read 2 of them, then I remembered these were to be read independently. =) Anyway, at that point I was looking into the audio versions and found these:
THE GOLDEN FLEECE: http://www.amazon.com/Golden-Fleece-Heroes-Before-Achilles/dp/B0002AYYT6
A WONDER BOOK: http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-Book-Greek-Mythology-Alive/dp/B004EDKW2K
TANGLEWOOD TALES: http://librivox.org/tanglewood-tales-by-nathaniel-hawthorne/
I hope this helps!
I have an 8 and 10 year old doing Module 2 this year. I read The Golden Fleece over the summer and knew even my 10 year old would not be able to read it on her own (and enjoy it). So we are just reading it together as a read-aloud. I have not tried A Wonder Book, though. I looked at other mythology stories, but I love the way The Golden Fleece covers them more fully than others. I’d say it is rather advanced. I’m going to look at those audio options! Thank you for sharing the links!
I was thinking about the Charlotte Mason philosphy in not dumbing down books last night for children, so I decided to try A Wonder Book today. I had written down some of the harder words and the character names to go over with him before I sent him off to read, and I was surprised at how many words he already knew. Then he read the 1st half of the chapter and even read a little more because he wanted to know what would happen! He LOVED it! I’m so glad because, while I like both books, I like A Wonder Book a little more and prefer the variety of stories over reading about the many adventures of Jason in The Golden Fleece. We’ll see how it goes, but I was pleased with how today’s reading went.
Yea! I am glad that it went well for you.
I downloaded The Golden Fleece today from Audible.com. I am not sure it will work. The chapters are 1 1/2 hours long, with no natural breaks in them. I find that for audio, we can handle shorter chapters more often. But I finally caught on today while listening (probably because I wasn’t trying to keep the flow going while figuring out how to pronounce all the names!) that the stories within the story are the Ancient Greek’s way of explaining creation and how the natural law works. It ended up being a great scriptural discussion with my girls, but the chapters are still so long. I was going to get the audio of A Wonder Book (I don’t have a copy) and see what I thought.
You know that Jason’s story is covered in Famous Men of Greece. My kiddos were confused at one point since the versions are so different. So if Jason is not in A Wonder Book, you’ll still get the story.
Interestingly, I was reading Hearing and Reading, Telling and Writing and there is a qoute in the handbook by CM, of course. She mentions not explaining new vocab words to children, but to wait for them to ask. Most of the time they (we) can figure out what a word means, or could mean, by context alone.
That handbook is so helpful to me…I really should read more of CM’s writings, and I’m trying to, but for now this is very insightful.
I love her idea of introducing a child to an author and “getting out of the way.” I love the idea of causing my dc to do the mental work involved in figuring things out for themselves. I am here to answer questions/discuss as best I can, but not to do the hard work for them. I love CM.
Sheraz, I found a free audio version of A Wonder Book here: http://www.booksshouldbefree.com/book/Wonder-Book-for-Girls-Boys-by-Hawthorne. It looks like you can download it directly to your computer or to a Kindle or other ebook reader. The site has lots of audio classics for free.
Kris, thanks. I have gotten things from them before and had forgotten to check them out! I’ll do that now! =)
I was wondering if anyone has substituted a different book. I checked out The Golden Fleece from the library and also bought A Wonder Book. I have looked at both and am not sure that my son’s reading level is up to pare to enjoy either of them. I would like to find him something he can read to himself. Has anyone ever substituted D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths?
@Melissa: No, but I think that’s a good choice if your child is younger than 8 or 9. Other choices are:
James Baldwin’s :
A Story of the Golden Age of Greek Heroes
and
Old Greek Stories
http://www.yesterdaysclassics.com/catalog/displaycatalog.php?catalog=greece
Thanks, I’ll check those out. He’s actually 10, but I have an 8 year old, so maybe he and I will read a few stories aloud from D’Aulaires’ book. Any other suggestions welcome too.
I have all three that Rachel mentioned and I think that any of them would work well! I am excited to explore them all further. So far I liked the stories I’ve read in the D’Aulaires’ book, but haven’t been able to read them all yet.
For those looking for audios, both of the Baldwin books are free at librivox.org. 😉
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