Read Alouds

I am following this Homeschool Conference, I guess you would call it, on some one's blog that was recommended to me. If I understand what is going on, the moderator or hostess posts a topic and then everyone kind of chimes in with comments, tips, etc.

Last night's post was about Read Alouds, books that the parent is to read to their children during school. Certain books, near as I can tell, are designated RAs because they maybe a littler harder to read or have a little bit more teachable substance to them.

When the hostess asked for introductions from all of us who were participating in the "conference", one of her questions was basically "What do you look forward to the most in starting school?" My response was Read Alouds, Read Alouds, Read Alouds. Because I love to read, because I love to read my kids' school books, because I LOVE to read to my kids and because I want them to grow up loving to read.

So, when the hostess posted last night's blog topic about RAs, I couldn't wait to comment. I started to, then I stopped. I am not sure I will comment there, but I figured I would say what I have to say here about how we do RAs.

Every school day we have scheduled in Bible, History, Literature and Science RAs. (Because we use Ambleside we read a lot.) Bible and Science we read together. But, for History and Literature I read to each girl (and eventually Boop) individually. While I am reading with one girl the other girl entertains EG. And then at some point they switch. That way we have uninterrupted reading time.

We have been reading together at night for almost as long as I can remember. Before I even decided to homeschool I just knew I wanted to end the day reading to the kids. I envisioned sitting by the fire, all of us curled up together, reading the latest book. Honestly, there have been one or two times it has actually looked like that. But, we do read together, on the couch almost every night after the baby goes to bed.

It has been a great way for me to reconnect with the kids, especially after a hard day. And we can have plenty of those. We all (minus EG) get on the couch and just relax. I read, Boop grabs a pillow and blanket and usually falls asleep before I am done. LM and NG take turns sitting next to me. Sometimes when daddy is home, he finds his place on the couch as well.

We have read some really fabulous books this way. We just finished Otto of the Silver Hand and we are starting the second book in the Saturday's series. Almost all of our books come from Ambleside recommendations. So there isn't much in the way of twaddle.

I look forward to reading a lot more books to the kids again this year. . .