summer reading

I thought I'd take a few minutes to share what we've been reading this summer. Throughout the course of the spring and the summer, the boys have moved into silently reading to themselves, in addition to reading to each other and to me. And I, of course, have been reading to them as well.


We have several formal reading times during the day. One is our weekly poem, which we read once each day (and use in some of Zoo Boy's speech therapy work). This week's poem is another by Robert Louis Stevenson (what can I say, we're on a roll):


Bed in Summer, by Robert Louis Stevenson

In winter I get up at night
And dress by yellow candlelight.
In summer, quite the other way,
I have to go to bed by day.

I have to go to bed and see
The birds still hopping on the tree
Or hear the grown-up people speak
Still going past me in the street.

And does it not seem hard to you,
When all the sky is clear and blue
And I should like so much to play,
To have to go to bed by day?


Just prior to rest time, I read to the boys from a chapter book. I began the summer with Misty of Chinconteague, by Marguerite Henry, but it wasn't as big a hit with them as I thought it would be. (It was one of my favorite books when I was a kid.) So I ditched my plans to follow it up with Stormy, Misty's Foal, and instead switched gears and read them The Tale of Despereaux, by Kate DiCamillo. That was a HUGE hit, surprisingly since there is a bit more intensity to that book than I would have thought my kids were comfortable with. Only goes to show that they are growing and maturing every day! We are now on to Thimble Summer, by Elizabeth Enright, which is a really, REALLY sweet book, I highly recommend it for this age group!

Every Tuesday, the boys get the next installment in a series book. J is reading The Magic Treehouse series, by Mary Pope Osborne, and Zoo Boy is reading the Henry and Mudge series by Cynthia Rylant. They've each read about 16 books or so, and I'm having to start thinking about the next series for Zoo Boy, since we're running out of books. When they get the books, they read them silently to themselves first, then they read them to each other at some point. They they read each other's books to themselves as well.

I've also resumed our Family Story Time, which is a before-bed tradition we had done during our two Kindergarten-type years, but had let slide a bit this past year. To give them more of an opportunity to read aloud, now that they are doing most of their reading to themselves, I've changed the format a bit. So I'm selecting three seasonally-appropriate picture books each week, and J is assigned one to read to us all, Zoo Boy is assigned one, and either The Map Man or I read the other (whoever is actually putting the kids to bed -- it's a rare night that we're both available). This week J is reading Summertime in the Big Woods, by Laura Ingalls Wilder (illustrated by Renee Graef), Zoo Boy is reading Otters Under Water by Jim Arnosky, and I am reading Sunflower House, by Eve Bunting (illustrated by Kathryn Hewitt).

So plenty of reading going on around here this summer!