Here is the July update of what I have read to date for the Tim Challies 2016 Reading Challenge.

My reading:

A book someone tells you “changed my life”: (Teaching from Rest: A Homeschooler’s Guide to Unshakeable Peace by Sarah Mackenzie)

A book by or about a pastor’s wife: (Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full by Gloria Furman)

A book more than 100 years old: (In Freedom’s Cause: A Story of Wallace and Bruce by G. A. Henty)

A book by a woman conference speaker: (The Question by Leigh Bortins)

A self-improvement book: Do More Better

Here is an update of what I have read to date for the Tim Challies 2016 Reading Challenge, and what my 5 year old daughter and I have read together for the CounterCultural School Reading Challenge.

We are a little late to the party, as we just discovered and started the Reading Challenge in late May. Notice I have chosen some titles that overlap my categories and hers, so I can kill two birds with one stone! If I am reading something to her or listening to it with her, it is great if it can count for my list, too. For example, my “book for children” was The Wizard of Oz, and it was her “movie tie-in” book. We did the Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe together, which let us both check off a C.S. Lewis title.

After about 6 weeks of reading I am averaging a book a week, placing me solidly in the “obsessed reader” category! Sadly, once school starts back in a few weeks I will have to really curtail my reading and may only prove to be a “light reader” or at best an “avid reader”.

My reading for May/June:

A book your pastor recommends: (Fair Sunshine)

A book for children: (The Wizard of Oz)

A book by C.S. Lewis or J.R. R. Tolkien: (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)

A book written by Jane Austen: (Pride and Prejudice)

A memoir: Memoirs of an Ordinary Pastor: (The Life and Reflections of Tom Carson)

A novel longer than 400 pages: (Jane Eyre)

My daughter’s reading:

A book about God–theology for kids: (Everything a child should know about God)

A children’s classic: (My Father’s Dragon)

A chapter book: (Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle)—done as an audio book

A C. S. Lewis or George MacDonald title: (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe)—audio book in the car

A movie or TV tie-in book: (The Wizard of Oz)—narrated on Audible by Anne Hathaway

I recently found Tim Challies’ 2016 Reading Challenge post. Since I am trying to make a conscious effort to do more reading, I decided to jump in with both feet, even though 2016 is half gone. In his challenge he lists 104 categories of books to choose from and the idea is to read one book from each category, from as many categories as you decide to (13 categories is considered a “light reader” while the full 104 makes you “obsessed”). Some of the categories include things like a biography, a classic novel, a book more than 100 years old, or a title recommended by a family member.

As I was working through the list it occurred to me that I would LOVE to have this type of goal for my kids, as well.

Often they focus their pleasure reading on one particular category (animal books, or books in a series, for example) and this seems like a great way to help them diversify a bit.

With that in mind, I made my own list of 50 categories for kids. Today is July 4th so we have about 25 weeks left until Christmas. My kids can work their way through the whole list reading just 2 books a week. If that seems too aggressive, maybe your goal would be one book a week and get half way through the list. It doesn’t matter, as YOU can tailor the goal for your own schedule and whatever you feel would work for your child. I am printing out a list for each of my kids–the younger ones may get through all 50 categories and the older ones might only get through 10 (since their books are much longer). I hope to post updates periodically about some of their selections (and mine!) and I would love to hear from you if you decide to take the Reading Challenge. Happy Reading!

CounterCultural School Kids 2016 Reading Challenge

My first daughter was born shortly after my 40^th birthday.  I hope to be around for another 40 years, to walk as her companion through the many stages of a woman’s life.  But I don’t take it for granted that I will be.

I have already started a library for her, filled with books about faith, biblical womanhood, marriage, and motherhood.  I hope we will read them and talk about them together.  If that isn’t part of God’s plan for her, then I pray she will read them herself and glean much wisdom and guidance from them.

I want to share with her the books that have impacted my life and made me the woman that I am.  I want her to know what I was reading and thinking about at various stages in my journey of motherhood.  And just in case I am not there to tell her, I am collecting an assortment of books for her and inscribing each one with a few words and the date inside the cover.  Some of the books are brand new, purchased just for her.  Others are stained with drips from my ever-present cup of coffee and, occasionally, my own tears.

There is page in the journal I keep for her which lists the books I want her to read.  If the collection is ever broken up or misplaced, or if I “borrow” a title to re-read myself and forget to put it back, I want a record in the journal of what I intended to give her.  There is also a page listing favorite children’s books which I hope she will share with my grandchildren.  I haven’t begun setting these books aside yet, as I will still be enjoying them with her for years to come.  One day, though, when she sorts through my vast library of children’s books, I want her to know which ones were her favorites, and which ones I most loved to read to her.

What great books do you intend to share with your daughter?

Here are a few of the titles I have put in my daughter’s library so far:

Stepping Heavenward by Elizabeth Prentiss

The Excellent Wife: A Biblical Perspective by Martha Peace

Let Me Be a Woman by Elisabeth Elliot

A Promise Kept by Robertson McQuilkin

Mother by Kathleen Norris

The Family Daughter Becoming Pillars of Strength in Our Father’s House by Sarah Bryant

What He Must Be: …If He Wants to Marry My Daughter by Voddie Baucham

Naked & Unashamed: Recapturing Family Intimacy by Bill Mills

Large Family Logistics by Kim Brenneman

The Ministry of Motherhood: Following Christ’s Example in Reaching the Hearts of Our Children by Sally Clarkson

*post first published on Mentoring Moments for Christian Women

I love using the classical cycle of studying history, because I know that my children will encounter each time period in history 3 times throughout their homeschool career.

When they study a topic the first time, we can start to build a framework, and they can fill in the details when we hit that subject again.

The Classical History Cycle

The classical cycle begins with a year of studying the Ancient times, followed by a year devoted to the Middle Ages, Renaissance and Reformation, a year for the 19th century and a year for the 20th century. At the end of that four year period, you go back to the Ancients and begin again, each time using more resources which challenge your children at their current level of understanding.

What about “holes”?

Many homeschoolers worry about leaving “holes” in their child’s education. When I started homeschooling almost 10 years ago this was a concern for me, as well. As I began studying history for the first time with my child, I quickly realized that my own public school education had plenty of holes in it! There were vast time periods of history that I had never studied before!

I realize that I can never teach my kids everything there is to know about history, and that the most important thing is to give them a zeal for learning and teach them where to find answers when they have questions. However, I wanted to give them a more systematic approach than the one I had grown up with.

Throughout this Library Builders series we have been reflecting on how the principles laid out in Philippians 4:8 relate to what we should be reading. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”

Every book we read must be excellent

We are told to think on “Whatever is excellent or praiseworthy”. Families today are busy, and most of us probably don’t have as much time to read as we’d like. The bulk of our reading is done for school. Therefore, every book we read for school needs to be excellent.

Some homeschool curriculum providers give children snippets of the classics in textbook compilations. I view this approach a little bit like chewing up a child’s food and then giving it to him to swallow. There comes a point when a child needs to learn to chew the food on his own, and digest it himself.

I do use some excellent history texts as a spine, such as Your Story of the World. We listen to a couple of chapters a week from the volume that corresponds with our history study, as a kind of framework. But the bulk of our reading is classic literature, biographies, hero stories and moral stories relating to the time period of our studies.

Building on a Framework

This framework gives me a basis for choosing books topically. Each summer I get out all the books for the time period we will be studying next. Right now, I am prepping for our study of Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation and Revolutionary war.

I look at all the books that I already own for these topics….the biographies, the hero stories, the moral tales, the theological books, art and music books, and the classics. I set aside the ones we didn’t like the last time we went through this cycle, and make a note of which ones were favorites that we mus read again. Which sections of my bookshelf are wanting….do I need more biographies for this time period, or more art books? As I prepare to make purchases for the coming year, I take note of what I still need, and of which books on my shelves can be substituted for the books my curriculum recommends. I see no point in purchasing a new book about Michelangelo when one on my shelf will do just fine.

The Classical cycle has given me some boundaries, to know how long to spend on a given subject and when to move on. If we spend too much time on the Greeks and not quite enough on the Romans, that’s OK. I know we’ll be back to this material again in a few years, and we can make up for it then. I can feel confident as I look back over almost a decade of homeschooling that I have done my best to provide a systematic study of history. I’m trying to do the same thing with science, taking time to study biology, chemistry, physics and geology in a rotating cycle, as well.

Here are a few of the titles that we have enjoyed during our trip through the Classical cycle. I’ll build some of the links for you, and others you’ll have to google search for yourself!

Ancient Times

G. A. Henty’s The Cat of Bubastes

Tirzah by Lucille Travis

The God King by Joanne Williamson

Ancient Egyptians and their Neighbors by Broida and others in this series

Archimedes and the Door of Science

Classical Kids and other books by Laurie Carlson

Daily Life at the Time of Jesus by Vamosh

Peril and Peace by Mindy and Brandon Withrow

Famous Men of Greece and Famous Men of Rome by Haaren

The Story of the Romans by Guerber

Trial and Triumph by Hanula (spans multiple time periods)

The True Story of Noah’s Ark

books by Peter Connolly

Black Ships before Troy and The Wanderings of Odysseus by Sutcliff (it is worth it to find the illustrated versions)

Hostage Lands by Douglas Bond

Middle Ages, Renaissance, Reformation

The Great and Terrible Quest has been one of our all-time favorites for this time period

Crown and Covenant series

Michelangelo and Leonardo Da Vinci, both by Diane Stanley

Monks and Mystics: Chronicles of the Medieval Church and Courage and Conviction: Chronicles of the Reformation church by Mindy and Brandon Withrow

The Princess Adelina by Julie Sutter

The Spanish Brothers: A Tale of the 16th Century by Alcock (another memorable favorite)

To Have and to Hold by Johnstone

Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children

Of Plymouth Plantation by William Bradford and other favorite books for Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims

Reformation Heroes

Stories of the Old Dominion

Famous Men of the Middle Ages

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

A Child’s Story of America by Michael/McHugh

Faith and Freedom series by Douglas Bond

Drums of War series from Peter Reese Doyle

19th Century

Charlotte in Giverny by Knight

The Boy in the Alamo by Margaret Cousins

Jack Archer by G. A. Henty

The Drummer Boys’ Battle by Jackson and others in the Trailblazer series

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Machlachlan

Seabird by Holling C. Holling

The Star Spangled Banner by Peter Spier

Modern Times

Twenty and Ten by Du Bois

My Secret Camera

Sergeant York and the Great War by Alvin York and Tom Skeyhill

World War II for Kids

Albert Marrin biographies

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

The Story of the Trapp Family Singers by Maria Augusta Trapp

The Lord of the Rings trilogy and The Hobbit by J. R. R. Tolkien

I’ve been going over my Home Library Builders post series with a fine-tooth comb this week, in preparation for my talk on Tuesday for the Ultimate Home School Expo. I’ll be speaking on The Homeschooler’s Library, gathering all the information I’ve sought to share in this series into an audio podcast.

You can log in on Tuesday at 10:00 a.m. CST to listen to this live Preview chat. I’ll also be posting this series on the blog soon. I’ve found a way to record each episode in a brief, 10 minute podcast and load them all onto one widget. You’ll be able to click on just those episodes that you want to hear.

In the meantime, it has come to my attention that these posts are very heavily weighted toward books for boys. I reached out to my readers a few days ago, asking for suggestions for books for girls in keeping with the categories in Philippians 4:8. I’m going to compile a list here of suggestions I received.

Heather recommended all the Louisa May Alcott books, such as Little Women, the books in the Anne of Green Gables series, The Little Princess, Heidi, and the Little House books. I didn’t really even think of those as books for girls, as we’ve read most of them and loved them all. These are great suggestions. Heather also mentioned the series FaithGirlz, female missionary biographies (such as those about Annie Armstrong, Lottie Moon, Edna McMillan, etc.) and the Children’s Heritage series. She also mentions books in the girls section at Vision Forum, which is a favorite for us, as well. Their link is in the sidebar of the blog.

Teacher/Mom notes that many people have mixed feelings about the American Girls series, but she uses them in her homeschool as a way to bring up “talking points”. I have read some of the very large, hardback American girl books with my boys (ssssh!!!) with the title “Welcome to…..[Kit’s, Felicity’s, etc.} World.” Most of these books have very little to do with the featured American Girl and a lot to do with the history of the featured time period. We have, surprisingly, enjoyed these books!

She says that she enjoys sharing many of the older series from her own childhood with her daughters: Betsy series by Carolyn Haywood (as well as other books by this author), Liza, Bill and Jed Mysteries by Peggy Parish, the “Shoes” books by Noel Streatfield, the Betsy and Tacy books by Maude Hart Lovelace, and the original Nancy Drew series.

Michelle reminded me of the book “The Witch of Blackbird Pond”, a book about the Salem witch trials which kept me up half the night once when I was a teenage girl.

Stacie recommends the Daughters of the Faith series by Wendy Lawton, which includes books based on the lives of Olive Oatman, Mary Chilton, Harriet Tubman, Pocahontas, Phylis Sweetly, Mary Bunyan and more.

Carissa adds, “my dd has really enjoyed the All of a Kind Family series, which I don’t think has been mentioned. All of my children, boys and girls, have enjoyed Summer With the Moody’s and the other books in the series, by Sarah Maxwell.” We liked Summer with the Moody’s, as well…it is hard to find books about homeschooling families, but Sarah Maxwell (a homeschooled child herself, daughter of Terri Maxwell of Managers of Their Homes fame) wrote these books about a family of homeschooled kids.

Several months ago, when I started this Home Library Builders series, I promised to write a post about finding books and organizing your library. This is a topic near and dear to my heart…I am always on the lookout for a treasure!

I use Tapestry of Grace, a curriculum centered around living books. Some weeks I might use as many as 20 different books for my students. My children are getting a rich and broad education, but it can be a strain on the budget and difficult to stay organized.

So what is my strategy?

Planning ahead

First, I take a look at my book lists, week by week. Tapestry gives me a breakdown of all the books I need every week, for a total of 36 book lists in all. I put each week’s list in a page protector, so I can mark on it with a Sharpie marker, without defacing the reading list. Tapestry is a classical program, which means that four years from now, I’ll be repeating this material again, albeit at a more advanced level for each child. My current 3rd grader will be reading books that his 7th grade brother read this year, and my preschooler will need the books my 3rd grader is reading. It helps to keep a record of what we have and what we need and what we liked so that I can refer to it in future years. By marking on a page protector, I can make notes that will help me now and in the future. Four years from now, I can slip off the old protector and replace it with a fresh one, making notes for a new trip through the material.

Decisions, decisions!

Tapestry gives me lots of choices. If I don’t have a given book, there are several alternates listed. As a general rule, I try very hard to get all the literature books that are recommended, as there is only one Huckleberry Finn. I often am able to substitute history titles with something that is already on my shelves. If I don’t have a certain geography book about Japan, but another similar title is already on my shelf, I make a note of the title I’ll be substituting on the page protector. By staying flexible and being willing to substitute equivalent titles I can save my budget for those must-have books.

Keeping my Options Open

Next, I open several windows on the computer. One is for my local library system, a window for Amazon, a window for Better World Books, a window for My Audio School, a window for Audible, and a window for Baldwin Project.

I look at each book on the list, checking how many weeks it will be used. Anything that will only be used for one week is typically at the top of my library list. I do a quick search and if the book is available through Inter-library Loan, I mark an L on the page protector by that title. When the time comes, I’ll order it through the library. My library can be slow, so I don’t use it for critical or time-sensitive titles. Often, I’ll order the suggested resource as well as all the alternates, and use whichever one comes in on time.

The library is a great place to get those hardback picture books for my young children. Those are expensive to buy, and typically will be read a couple of times and then put away. They are often readily available through the Inter-library Loan system.

Once I’ve gone through the titles, choosing which ones will be substituted and which ones will come from the library, I take a look at how to get what is left. Anything that is going to be used for multiple weeks, or which is critically important to our study, or which cannot be substituted (such as literature titles) is a good candidate for purchase. I have several children, and I know I’ll be using most of these books again.

Getting Books for Free

First, I check the free sites. Many of the old, classic literature titles are available in the public domain. Baldwin Project has lots of these titles available for free. There are also many available through Gutenberg Project, but I prefer the easy-to-navigate format at Baldwin Project. I don’t like sitting in front of a computer screen to read aloud, but my children don’t seem to mind silent reading from the screen. This is a good choice for us for those books.

Of course, I always check My Audio School, too! I say “check” even though this is my own website.  We have over 500 resources on the site now and I can’t even remember all the titles myself, LOL.

I can’t tell you how much money we’ve saved this year by listening to our books in audio format from public domain sources! It has been such a blessing to our dyslexic son and our emerging reader, and has saved my voice, too! I still read daily to them, but this gives them extra audio content while I am busy. My oldest son loves it as he can multi-task, listening to books in audio format while cleaning his room or building models. We stream the books from the computer, burn them to CD or download them to Mp3.

It does take a lot of time searching out these free resources. Now that I’ve done the work for you, you might want to take advantage of what My Audio School has to offer. Lots of free books are on the site, and for the cost of purchasing just one audio book you get links to hundreds of resources. Every single book on the site is available to download to Mp3, or individual chapters can be streamed from the site. I’ve also included links where you can read the books for free online.

Paperback Swap is another site I use for getting free titles. You post books that you no longer want online. In exchange for offering up 10 titles, you get two credits for free. Each credit allows you to request one book. Anytime someone requests one of your books and you send it to them, you get another credit. I’ve gotten a few of the books I need for next year for free through PBS. They make it very easy to mail the books, as you can print shipping labels and even postage from home if you have a paypal account.

Buy Used and Save the Difference

Next, I check Better World Books. This gem is my favorite place to get books. The used books are all donated by libraries, and used titles typically cost around $4 apiece. Profit from all sales goes to support literacy efforts around the world, and shipping is virtually free within the continental U.S. (and very cheap to other countries). Better World uses carbon offsets for shipping, and I typically pay about 10 cents shipping on $10 worth of books. I also like Thrift Books for used titles. I like to refer to amazon to read their reviews, and occasionally I’ll buy a book from them, as well. Their shipping is so high now for used books that sometimes you can get the title brand new with free shipping for little more than the used title would have cost.

Books on MP3

Although we use our website My Audio School for public domain books, Audible is another good source for audio books that aren’t in the public domain. My curriculum makes suggestions for each child’s literature. Several times a year I choose one selection from my oldest child’s list and we read it aloud as a family or listen to it on MP3. We all enjoy these family read-alouds. They are not at a level that my young children could read them alone, but they are perfectly able to enjoy and understand them as a read-aloud. Rather than purchasing three separate books for that week, I can get one excellent audio book that we can all enjoy together.

Other sites

I also check Tapestry’s Bookshelf Central, as they have competitive pricing on many of the books that are recommended as primary resources. Book Closeouts is another favorite site for classics and biographies purchased inexpensively. One more site that I regularly check is Library and Ed, a wholesaler that only sells to libraries, educators and homeschoolers.

Book Sales

Usually, anything I haven’t found online goes on a list which I keep in my purse. When I head out to spring books sales, my list goes with me. I’ve been known to drill this list into my 12 year old’s head, so he can be on the lookout, too! Last week I bought an R.M. Ballantyne book for 50 cents at a book sale…the seller must not have known what she had! I came home a happy girl, indeed.

Of course, I watch “for sale” boards on my yahoo groups, and borrow books from friends, as well. Once a book has been downloaded or purchased or borrowed, a notation on the page protector reminds me that it is taken care of.

Organizing books…don’t knock it ’till you try it

I have a system for organizing my history and literature books. Since the classical cycle lasts four years, I label my books accordingly. All books for Ancient Times get a red dot on the spine of the book. I use the little dots purchased for tagging garage sale items, and secure them with a small piece of scotch tape to the spine of the book (as the sticky back doesn’t adhere well to the spines without a little help).

Before taping the label on, I write a number on the spine to show which week it will be used. Number 1 for our first week of school, or 2-5 if the book will be used weeks two through five. Then all the books are arranged in order on a particular shelf…one shelf for my oldest child’s books, another shelf for my younger children’s books. This helps me to see at a glance exactly what we have, and to find it easily throughout the year.

Since we are literally using hundreds of books a year, spread out over different grade levels, this system of organization is a lifesaver for me.

Books for Renaissance and Reformation get a yellow dot. Green dots are for the time period from Napoleon to Teddy Roosevelt, and a blue dot adorns the spine of all books about modern times. I have a couple of shelves for each color. Next year, we’ll be studying Renaissance and Reformation…but if I find a great book that I’ll need for Modern Times at a book sale this spring, I’ll go ahead and buy it. Purchasing books in advance, when the price is right, is another way to save money.

I won’t need to purchase many titles at all for next year, because I’ve been collecting the books I need little by little for the past few years. And thanks to my system of organization, all of my Modern Times books are labeled and together. If I find something new, I know right where to put it, and I can feel confident that it will be there in three years when I need it.

The next post in this Home Library Builders series will be Whatever is Excellent: My favorite books for the Classical history cycle

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

A classic is a book which has stood the test of time, captivating generations of readers. It often touches on topics which have universal appeal, such as love, friendship, betrayal or loss. Many classics are referenced in other works, allowing the well-read person to make connections between the two. For example, my son and I were recently watching the movie August Rush (not a classic!) and he immediately recognized several elements from Oliver Twist in the movie.

Although many classics are admirable, for these reasons and more, not every Classic is worth reading. Just as I would never watch every movie that wins an Oscar from the critics, there are many so-called “classics” which our Christian children should not be reading, such as books containing sensuality. I don’t give my younger children books with serious moral dilemmas which they are unprepared for. I look for books where the hero is a positive role model and avoid books which cause the reader to feel love and sympathy for someone who is disrespectful or immoral.

Reading Aloud with Older Children

I still some schedule read-aloud time with my 7th grader, because there are many books that are profitable for him to read with me, though they would not be good for him to read alone.

Last year, for example, my son and I read C.S. Lewis’ book The Great Divorce. Lewis paints an intriguing picture of heaven and hell in this allegorical story. Although I trust Lewis as an author, and would allow my son to read the entire Narnia series alone, it was important to discuss this particular book together, in light of its spiritual content. As we read we often paused to discuss passages that were difficult to understand or where we might disagree with Lewis. The book also raised questions in my son’s mind about spiritual matters, and it was important to be there as the questions arose.

Choosing books for strong readers

The books our children read will have a great impact on who they become, for good or for ill. Just as we would not allow them to play with fools and mockers, so we must protect their minds and hearts from authors who would seek to lead them astray. I would not allow my young child to spend hours alone, talking to a stranger. Do I allow him to read books I know nothing about?

Choosing Books for Voracious Readers

Early in this Home Library Builders series I addressed some of the concerns faced by parents of reluctant readers. But what about those voracious readers, who can never get enough? How do we choose books for them? Long ago I realized I would never have time to keep up with my oldest son. The days of pre-reading all his books are long gone, as he has more time and opportunity to read than I do these days.

Often my son has already read the books his curriculum suggests. Occasionally he re-reads a particularly excellent book, and I trust he will read with more understanding now than he did four years ago. Usually, however, I like to offer him new choices in his reading material.

In choosing books for him, I often rely on authors with whom we have experience, those whom I already have grown to trust. I also lean heavily on certain Christian curriculum providers, drawing new titles from their reading lists. Of course I draw from the curriculum I use, Tapestry of Grace. I also look through the Veritas Press, Beautiful Feet Books and Sonlight catalogs when looking for new books. I trust the screening they have done for me. Books that appear on more than one of my lists deserve definite consideration when I choose what we’ll read. It is also helpful to search extensive booklists like All Through the Ages by Christine Miller or Let the Authors Speak by Carolyn Hatcher when looking for new titles.

I am careful to consider age appropriateness when drawing from lists like these, particularly when choosing literature titles. Although my 7th grader reads at a high school level, that doesn’t mean he is mature enough to discern worldview on his own as he reads. Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451 appears on many high school reading lists, but a quick read-through of that book showed me that although my son would understand it, he was not old enough for it.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8

If you’ve been following this series, you know that Whatever is Lovely has turned out to be a very broad category! I’m glad to finish it up with this post on Nature Study. After this post, I’ll be moving on to the next part of the Home Library Builders series, Whatever is Admirable: The Classics.

Every home library should have a significant section devoted to nature study. Time spent outdoors, admiring and observing God’s creation, will shape a child’s soul. We read in Romans 1: 20 “For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.”

As our children are learning about the God of Creation through the Bible, let them also learn about God’s creation–and thereby more about the nature of the Creator Himself–through time spent outdoors.

The Nature Study library should have books and field guides to help us identify and learn more about what we find outdoors. It should also have Living Books which inspire the imagination and increase love for God and His world. Also, good biographies about famous naturalists belong on our shelves, as they help us gain insight into how man can be faithful in his dominion over the earth.

A Word of Caution

One must be cautious in purchasing books for a Nature Study library. Many science books are overtly or subtly evolutionary in nature. As a Christian creationist, I don’t believe that evolutionary books have a place on my shelves. I prefer to save the teaching of evolution for my older children, when it can be compared side by side alongside creation, in order to teach them what we believe and why, as well as how to defend their beliefs in our secular society. I don’t want to always have to pause as I am reading to my younger children to refute claims about evolution. For this reason, I am careful when purchasing books to choose titles that have no bias whatsoever, or books which have been written from a Christian creationist worldview.

I am also cautious about the tone of my books. Many modern-day children’s books have such a strong conservation message that they seem to place the creation above man. I am teaching my children to protect the environment, as this is our responsibility in exercising dominion over the earth. But many nature books go much further than this, causing feelings of guilt and fear that seem to me to have a political agenda more than anything. Typically the older classics don’t have this tone, but many secular science books written for children in the last ten years do.

A “Must Have” for Every Library

One book that belongs on any nature-lover’s shelf is Anna Botsford Comstock’s Handbook of Nature Study.
We have had this book for many years, and it has served us faithfully on many occasions. When we caught a praying mantis, this book told us what to feed it. When we see an insect we don’t recognize, there are copious drawings to help us make an identification.

Nature Study Outdoors

A kind reader commented that she likes my digressions. Please allow me a rabbit trail…A simple way to do Nature Study is to take a leisurely walk outside in the yard or at the park. Let the children find whatever draws their interest: insects, pine cones, flowers, interesting leaves, a bird perched in a tree, or anything in nature that captivates their attention. Spend some time observing what you find. Use a field guide or the internet to learn a bit about what you’ve found. Take a few minutes and let the children draw what they see, to the best of their ability. They can write or dictate a few notes about what they learned, or copy an appropriate poem, hymn, or Scripture verse alongside their drawing.

This kind of nature study can be done in as little as an hour a week, but the memories–and the nature notebook–will be treasured for years to come. For some inspiration about how an hour spent observing nature can yield rich conversation, humorous memories and an opportunity to disciple your children, read this post, written last year after our evening spent watching a lunar eclipse.

Many times these opportunities are seized, spur of the moment, when the children find something while playing in the yard. If you plan a few outings to observe nature with your children, you may find that they begin to spontaneously find things to observe as they begin to notice the world around them more and more.

Nature Journals

Back to books! It is always fun to browse what others have done in their nature notebooks. I was blessed to find a copy of Edith Holden’s The Country Diary of an Edwardian Lady
at a London thrift store (for a quarter)! It never ceases to amaze me the treasures that unknowing people throw away. If you’ve read the Charlotte Mason Companion, you know what a find this was.

Ms. Holden kept her journal month-by-month, with watercolor drawings of the birds, flowers and plants she saw on her nature walks. There are also poems and related folklore for each month. This is the type of nature journaling that appeals to me, where drawings and related text are combined. When we kept nature journals I liked to have the children copy poems, hymns or pertinent Scripture verses alongside their drawings. I found a few copies of Holden’s book available online, used, for $6 here, and many public libraries also keep this classic on the shelves.

You can also find good ideas for nature journaling, and ideas for teaching children how to journal, in the book Keeping a Nature Journal by Leslie and Roth.

One resource that is helpful in teaching simple drawing techniques is Mona Brookes’ Drawing With Children. A couple of hours spent with this book will pay off with much more realistic nature drawings.

We have kept nature journals in the past, but this year my middle boys are keeping a notebook of their favorite birds. We have been using the North American Birds Notebooking Pages in the boys’ birding journals. We like the pages with a small thumbnail drawing of the bird, a blank range map, and a few lines for jotting down notes. The boys consult a field guide to color in the bird correctly, and they color the range map to reflect where the bird spends its summer and winter. Then they dictate information, such as when they first spotted that bird in the wild or an interesting fact they have learned about the bird. We keep these pages in page protectors in a 3-ring binder, with a free-hand drawing of the same bird on the facing page. They are also working on getting digital photos of birds that come to our feeder, with the goal of adding some photos to their notebook.

Field Guides

My boys have loved this project and they take great pride in their notebook. It is helpful to have some good field guides on hand when doing nature study. We absolutely love Kenn Kaufman’s Field Guide to the Birds of North America. I would love to get Kaufman’s Butterfly guide titled Butterflies of North America, as well. It’s on my Nature study wish list! The First Field Guide series put out by National Audubon society is a good one for kids.

We also love using Living Books for nature study. A Living Book is one that is written by a single author (not a textbook) in a captivating, conversational style. The book draws you in through its story and helps you to remember what you’ve learned.

Here are some of my favorite Living Books for Nature study:

We love the art book Linnea in Monet’s Garden, so I was thrilled to find Linnea’s Almanac and Linnea’s Windowsill Garden, both by Cristina Bjork.

Citizen Bird by Mabel Osgood Wright, which is out of print but available for free download by the Gutenberg Project.

Minn of the Mississippi and all the other Holling C. Holling books are wonderful. Each book has detailed drawings alongside an excellent story, weaving history, science and geography seamlessly together.

I do Naturalist studies with my children, similar to our Artist studies and Composer studies. I like picture books that introduce children to conservationists and naturalists, such as Audubon: Painter of Birds in the Wild Frontier and John Muir: America’s First Environmentalist.

Nature Study for Emerging Readers

Nature study books are perfect for emerging readers. These are books that my children can read aloud to me, or silently to themselves to improve reading skills. I use easy readers such as John Muir: Rookie Biography for emerging readers,
Christian Liberty Press Nature Readers (graded readers, progressing from level to level) and books from the Childhood of Famous Americans (titles on Muir and Audubon) for 3rd and 4th grade level readers.

I have not personally read The Boy Who Drew Birds or Into the Woods: John James Audubon Lives His Dream, but I’m planning to get them through Inter Library Loan. Others that I haven’t read, but which look interesting to me, include Gregor Mendel: The Friar who Grew Peas, John Muir: My Life With Nature, The Flower Hunter and Girls Who Looked Under Rocks: The Lives of Six Pioneering Naturalists (which includes a chapter about Anna Botsford Comstock).

This post in the Home library builders series continues the theme Whatever is Lovely, looking at Poetry, Shakespeare and Charles Dickens.

I enjoy reading poetry with my children! It is one of those things that I haven’t been able to work into our normal daily schedule, so we try to take time once or twice a year to do it as a mini-unit. Sometimes we choose a particular poet, like Robert Frost, and read some of his works. Other times, we just flip through one of our anthologies and read whatever strikes us.

Poetry for Young Children

For my young children, poetry is mainly about listening and learning to enjoy. They are not required to write poems yet. I’d like to investigate Andrew Pudewa’s Developing Linguistic Patterns through Poetry Memorization for possible future use in our homeschool. I just heard about it and it looks wonderful! If anyone has used this, send me a comment about how you liked it.

All of my children have loved A.A. Milne’s poems. His books Now We Are Six and When We Were Very Young belong on every child’s bookshelf. We have them on tape, as well, read by Charles Kurault. The children have memorized many of these delightful poems just by listening in the car or at bedtime. As an added bonus, these are poems adults will also love. I never mind reading or listening to them. It is worth searching for the version recorded by Charles Kurault.

Creating a Family Vocabulary

By the way, when you hear the same poems over and over again, especially as a family, the wording becomes a part of your vocabulary. We often find ourselves quoting from some of these A.A. Milne poems, and everyone knows exactly what is meant. If my oldest son wants something and he knows it is costing me a bit of time or trouble, he sheepishly smiles and quotes from The King’s Breakfast, “Nobody, my darling, could call me a fussy man, but I do like a little bit of butter to my bread!” He is instantly understood.

Another of our favorite poets is Carl Sandburg. From Daybreak to Goodnight has folk art drawings and some humorous poems for children. As an aside, we also like Sandburg’s prose. He is most famous for his Rootabaga stories, but our favorite is The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle, and Who Was In It is still available here for $6. Poetry for Young People is also a good series. It is inexpensive and has many titles, each dedicated to a different poet.

Poetry for Older Children

Last year our oldest son used Matt Whittling’s book The Grammar of Poetry in this endeavor. The idea behind the book is to learn about different rhyme schemes and meter, alliteration and personification and then to write your own poem using what you’ve learned. There are also examples of famous poems included in the book.

He enjoyed doing a unit on poetry, but I think this book would be better for a slightly older child. I plan to revisit it again in eighth grade, as there is a lot of great content in the book. Last year, though, I felt that in some cases he “lost the forest for the trees”. He was so focused on getting the right number of weak and strong stresses into his poem, rather than just listening to the musical rhythm and letting it flow. So this year I am keeping it simple.

This year we are taking a break from marking stress symbols, and figuring out how many feet there are in a line of poetry. Instead, we take about five minutes before his writing time and go over one element of poetry. It has been helpful to solidify what he learned last year in the Grammar of Poetry book, without devoting time to go over all of it again in detail.

We talk about the components of a limerick or a haiku or how to do an ABAB CDCD rhyme scheme. I try to pull an example or two from the internet or from our Top 500 Poems anthology, which was so generously sent to me by a CC School blog reader after she saw my Wish List post! Then he applies what he learned by brainstorming and writing his own poem, often on a history topic that we are studying. Today, for example, he wrote a limerick about Alexander the Great. Last week he wrote an excellent poem about the Battle of Thermopylae.

Poetry and Struggling Readers

Today I had my eight year old sit with me while I casually flipped through the 500 Poems anthology. My goal was not poetry reading at all, truth be told. I wanted to see how his tracking was, as he sometimes skips lines while reading. A friend told me to have him read aloud the first and last letters in each line of a poem, and see if he skipped any lines. We did this as kind of a game, and I read the selected poems aloud before he told me the letters.

I was stunned when this reluctant reader insisted on trying to read each of the chosen poems to himself. This child never picks up a book unless directed to do so, and there he was, nose buried in one of the thickest books in the house! I can only speculate that the short lines, wide margins and rhyme patterns made the reading seem easier to him. I plan to investigate this in the days to come. I’ll let you know if I find poetry helps this emerging reader gain confidence and desire to read alone!

Shakespeare Study

Many families following a Charlotte Mason approach study Shakespeare every year. We use the Classical Method, and have only studied Shakespeare once every four years. My children do enjoy listening to Nesbit’s Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare on mp3 from time to time. We also have a print copy of Lamb’s Tales from Shakespeare, as this is another recommended version for children.

I have read that the Lamb’s Tales is easier for children to follow than Beautiful Stories for Children from Shakespeare by Edith Nesbit, but the Nesbit version is still my favorite. There are many editions of Nesbit’s classic. This version (published by Barnes and Noble), is my favorite! Every page has a beautiful detailed border, with classic period illustrations throughout.  My favorite illustrated version is out of print, however.  Even though we only study Shakespeare once every 4 years, we still listen to Nesbit’s book of Shakespeare stories about once a year, just for fun.

True Confessions

I confess, I love this book so much that when I found out it was discontinued, I bought every copy I could scrounge on clearance (going from store to store in my quest) so that they could be distributed to worthy friends who would recognize what a treasure they held! So take a minute:  head over to My Audio School and bookmark Beautiful Stories from Shakespeare for Children.  You and your kids will really enjoy it.

Learning About Shakespeare’s Life

Of course, it is important to learn about Shakespeare, as well. My young children like this book
William Shakespeare and the Globe Theater by Aliki.

My oldest son foundThe Shakespeare Stealer Series by Gary Blackwood to be exciting reading. This historical fiction book follows an orphan-turned-actor in his adventures as part of Will Shakespeare’s acting troupe, navigating intrigue and betrayal in Elizabethan London.

Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens is, of course, another author which deserves his place in every home library. His books pit good against evil in sharp contrast, and his phrasing is masterful. We read A Christmas Carol every year at Christmas, and attend a theatrical performance, as well. We also enjoy the Focus on the Family Radio Theater version, available here for free.

My oldest son read Oliver Twist, and I look forward to introducing him to more Charles Dickens as he gets older. Netflix has several Dickens movies, including some that can be streamed online. Preview, if you have young children. Many of Dickens’ novels deal with young children being harshly treated, and some scenes would be unsettling for young viewers. For young children, I recommend the picture-book biography about Dickens,
Charles Dickens: The Man Who Had Great Expectations by Diane Stanley and Peter Vennema.

“Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” Philippians 4:8