Reading » The Curriculum Choice

Book Review ~ A Necklace for Jiggsy by Kit Grady

Jan 272012

A Necklace for Jiggsy
Author: Kit Grady
Softback; 18 pages
Suggested Age: 4 – 12
ISBN: 978161630910
Retail: $10.95

I really like this book as it teaches children about honesty and a little about life. It is a quick story with really neat, bright pictures. The story is about a junk yard dog named Jiggsy and a beautiful necklace he finds. He hears that the owner would like it back but he has gained the respect of many others because of his beautiful necklace – therefore he doesn’t want to return it to her. That is, until he looses his very special pillow. He then realizes how much the original owner of the necklace must feel. He promptly returns it to her – and she returns the favor to him. But you’ll have to read the story to find out how.

This book is very well written and beautifully illustrated!

About Kit Grady:

Kit Grady is a full time children’s illustrator and author living in the mountains of Asheville, North Carolina with her husband, son and border collie, Panda. Her love for drawing animals, nature and children began very early. She continued her passion studying art at Virginia Commonwealth University and later studied under Caldecott winners Uri Shulevitz and Gale Haley. Kit has produced greeting cards and created a weekly children’s page for the local newspaper. Her clients include The United Methodist Publishing House/Cokesbury, Kaeden Books, Guardian Angel Publishing and Meegenius. She is a member of theSociety of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. When not writing and illustrating, she visits schools and libraries to celebrate the joy of reading. Kit, best known for her bright colors and expressive animals, has several new projects due out this year.

For more information, or to purchase your own copy:
Guardian Angel Publishing
St Louis, Missouri 63128

Click HERE to learn more about Guardian Angel Publishing.

Have a wonderfully blessed day!

Come visit Dawn over at her blog, Guiding Light Homeschool, on Facebook and on Twitter…friends are ALWAYS welcome!

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K5 Learning

Elementary, Language Arts, Logic, Mathematics, Online, Phonics, Reading, Spelling, Uncategorized 2 Responses »

Jan 182012

To be honest, when I was approached about writing a review for K5 Learning, I was going to pass. We just haven’t liked any online sites that we have tried. I decided it was only fair to give it a quick look before saying no, and my five-year-old was immediately drawn into the site. I responded to the request with a yes.

We started with the recommended learning assessment, to see where my son scored on grade level, so the program could correctly place him to start the program. The assessment has a variety of levels given within it. Some answers will be too easy, others too hard. This is the only way the program can know where your child is in his learning. However, I wish there was a button for parents to choose “does not apply”, as my son correctly answered some questions he had no clue about, just by chance. Once the assessment is over, the parent can log in to see where your child was placed. Evan scored 1st grade, and he is in Kindergarten. (I thought he was reading above K!) After the program knows where your child’s skill level is, you are ready to learn.

The layout is attractive and inviting. Evan has really enjoyed learning his lessons with this program. I wanted to share with you a few examples of the curriculum in action, to give a better idea of what a lesson looks like.

The pros:

These lessons aren’t full of games and a little education, your child will really learn:

phonetic awareness, phonics, sight words, vocabulary and reading comprehension.
numbers and operations, geometry, measurement (including time and money), algebraic thinking and data analysis.
basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division facts. (with monitored progress for mastery)
spelling-you can even assign your own word lists.

Other positives:

works for special needs learners.
parents have access to learning reports to track progress.
the lessons adjust to your child’s individual learning automatically.

{my favorite part of the lesson}

Each lesson also has a preview of sorts that explains what you are about to learn and how to answer. I really like that about the program.

{this math lesson was challenging, but enjoyable}

{we apparently needed this, as Evan asked if dragons were real!}

The con:

This online curriculum has some great positives and I am glad we were invited to try it. I do have one negative to give, however:

When we went to work on the math facts for mastery, we found they are timed drills. Drills makes sense for older children – but Evan is five, with little keyboard skills. He never could get fast enough to pass, even though he answered all of the questions correctly.

As you can see, 0 were answered quickly enough, but all were correct. It had nothing to do with knowing the facts. I do wish the curriculum had thought of smaller children with little hands and no knowledge of why the numbers don’t go in order on mommy’s computer pad. Evan couldn’t understand why he didn’t pass when he knew all of the answers.

The rest of this site is great, so we will likely just be skipping this section unless that aspect is changed. Overall, it is a great program with true learning as the star. It is just fun enough to keep Evan from feeling overwhelmed, but this isn’t busy work. I would definitely recommend this if you have any interest in computer learning.

Purchase info:

After the trial ends, the monthly subscription for one child is $25 or you can purchase one year for one child for $199. K5 Learning has a free 14 day trial that doesn’t require your credit card to begin. (I love that.)
I would recommend giving the free 14 day trial a try. Evan has really enjoyed this in the few weeks he has been using it. If we had the extra $25 in our budget, I would continue on when our subscription expires. I wasn’t expecting to enjoy K5 Learning this much. It has been a great addition to our day.

Sam's Noggin

**I was given a 3 month subscription in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.**

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The Reading Game

Elementary, Language Arts, Reading No Responses »

Dec 192011

I don’t know about your family but anytime our family can include game playing in our school lessons – we do – and love it! In my opinion, playing games is an awesome way to learn anything. The Reading Game is a fast action memory card game designed to help supplement young children on their path to learning to read. The Reading Game was created by the same author of the “Wordly Wise” series.

Included in The Reading Game is a series of six beautifully illustrated storybooks. The memory game cards are common site words that meet the criteria of the Common Core State Standards for Language Arts, Foundational skills, and Reading skills needed for both kindergarten and first graders. To see a full listing of reading standards and how the game correlates with them, click HERE. Enjoy this game with any struggling readers older than first grade.

Each game is played in six stages, each teaching five words. The idea behind the game is that once your child has completed his or her first round with the memory matching game they will have those words embedded into their brains. The different sets of memory cards are color and picture coordinated to connect with the storybooks included with the game. So after finishing the first set of memory cards your child has been introduced to the sight words used in the first storybook. In fact, the storybook uses only those thirty words. This sets your child up for success in reading. It is the frequent exposure through play that hard-wires these words into long-term memory. To play The Reading Game, two players are required, the student and the teacher.

So many first readers are just plain boring and in my opinion do not engage children in a way that they should. The Reading Game is different. These books are interesting and involve animals in their storyline which my own children have really enjoyed. A skunk, snake, bear, penguins, unicorn, and zebra appear in the books.

After completing the entire series, your child should have a reading vocabulary of 180 words. You can learn more details about how the game works and watch a video of it by clicking, HERE.

The author offers sight word assessment worksheets, as well as test sentence assessment worksheets, HERE, to help monitor the progress of your child as you play The Reading Game.

The cost of The Reading Game is 24.95$ and that includes six beautifully illustrated story books, six decks of matching playing cards, and a Teacher and Parent’s Guide. You can find The Reading Game on Facebook. To purchase click, HERE.

Disclaimer: I was sent this game for FREE in exchange for my honest review. No other compensation was received.

Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension

Elementary, Junior High Language Arts, Language Arts, Middle School, Reading No Responses »

Nov 162011

Have you ever wished for a reading comprehension program that encourages higher order thinking skills? Questions that require deep thinking, inference and opinion? Questions based on “living” literature selections rather than dry paragraphs? All of this in assignments that can be completed in a lesson or two? Not to mention, reading comprehension available for children as old as 9th grade?

I’ve had the pleasure of reviewing levels 4 and 5 of the Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension Program, which covers all the bases above!

Each of the books consists of 20 lessons divided into three chapters.

Chapter 1 focuses on Short Stories – like The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County, The Gift of the Magi and The Tell-Tale Heart.
Chapter 2 focuses on Poetry – like Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening, Ulysses, and Not They Who Soar.
Chapter 3 focuses on Biographies – like Emily Dickinson, Marie Curie and Harriet Tubman.

For each lesson, your child must read the 1-7 page literature selection then work “up the ladder” to complete questions or activities. The reason the program is titled “Jacob’s Ladder” is because nine different activities are suggested as follow-up to the reading. The activities are written on a pictoral ladder. The lower the question or activity is on the ladder, the lower the thinking skill; the higher the question or activity is on the ladder, the higher the thinking skill. You may choose to assign as few or as many of the activities as you like.

The thinking skills are divided into six types of skill content.

Ladder A focuses on prediction skills. These activities will include sequencing, cause and effect, and consequences and implications.
Ladder B focuses on deductive reasoning skills. Activities include recalling details, classification and generalization.
Ladder C focuses on literary analysis skills. Activities include identifying literary elements, making inferences and determining themes or central ideas.
Ladder D focuses on the skill of creating new materials based on information in the reading. Activities include paraphrasing, summarizing and creating own materials.
Ladder E focuses on the skill of emotional development. Activities include understanding emotion, expressing emotion and using emotion.
Ladder F focuses on the skill of metacognition. Activities include planning and goal setting, monitoring and assessing, and reflecting.

The nine activities offered for each reading lesson include a mixture of the various skills. As I mentioned before, you can choose to assign as few or as many of the activities as you like. You may also decide to allow your child to choose one or more of the activities herself. Depending on how many activities you require, the lessons can last as long as 30-45 minutes one day or 30-45 minutes/day for a week or more. Several of the lesson ideas lend themselves to co-operative learning, too, if you’d like to allow your children to work together occasionally.

The books are published by Prufrock Press, a publisher of materials for gifted children. While these books are certainly appropriate for gifted children, they will serve homeschoolers well, too! Anyone who has a good reader that needs to take comprehension to the next level will love Jacob’s Ladder. While the books are on the expensive side at $39.95 each, they provide wonderfully in-depth reading lessons that are sure grow to your child’s higher order thinking skills.

-Written by Cindy, an eclectically Charlotte Mason mom of 3 living in Central KY. You can find her blogging at Our Journey Westward and find her NaturExplorers studies and other creative homeschooling helps at Shining Dawn Books.

-Cindy received the Jacob’s Ladder books as compensation for her honest review.

All About Learning Press Readers

Elementary, Language Arts, Living books, Preschool, Reading No Responses »

Oct 072011

My beginning readers are children who have been raised on a wide variety of literature, from Dora the Explorer books (which do not really count as literature) to classics like Heidi and everything in between. As they have begun learning to read one thing I have tried to find are beautiful books on their level. I’m sorry, I’ve seen those beginning readers where the whole story is 3 or 4 words repeated in different combinations with varying punctuation. You know, ones that say:

“A cat?
A cat.
A mat.
A cat sat.
Cat on mat.
Cat sat.”

My children very quickly made it clear that those insipid readers were not worth their time and effort. I heartily agreed. On the other end of the spectrum you find beginning readers that include a whole list of ‘sight words’, words the child is simply expected to memorize by sight so they can read a story. Most of these sight words are, in fact, able to be decoded once you learn the spelling rules, but with a beginning reader I want to find beautiful stories that do not depend on a list of sight words outside the child’s reading level. Imagine my excitement two years ago when I discovered the readers put out by All About Learning Press, publishers of the All About Spelling curriculum.

We own all the readers available at this point. They are beautiful! The illustrations tell an often funny story, one that goes beyond the beginning reader text. Even at this very early level a story is not limited to 3-5 words repeated over and over. Currently there are 3 readers for level 1 and two available for level 2.

Our most recent purchase is the Run, Bug, Run! reader. In the 157 pages the only words that were not ‘short vowels’, and therefore completely decodable for my beginning readers, were “the” and “A”. A quick talk about open syllables and closed syllables explained why the vowels had long sounds. My 5 and 6 year old both love these readers. Even the 3 year old is beginning the sound out letters from this reader. The artwork is simply beautiful, and the stories are original and sweet. (You can read a sample story HERE.)

Every family has different tastes in reading material. Finding books for beginning readers can often be frustrating. If you are looking for beautiful books for a beginning reader be sure to check out the samples for each book in this series!

Tristan is the happily homeschooling mother to 6 blessings age 9, 6, 5, 3, 1, and 2 months old. You can drop in and visit anytime over at her blog, Our Busy Homeschool.

I Can Read! Made by God Series by ZonderKidz

Reading No Responses »

Oct 052011

Book Series: I Can Read! Made by God.

Age Recommendation: 4 to 7

Use: Reader Books; Level 2 Reading with Help

Publisher: ZonderKidz

When I see ZonderKidz, I take notice. I have purchased many books from ZonderKidz in the past and have never been disappointed. I love the quality and the interwoven faith in the books. Couple that with the I Can Read! series which is known having titles win the Caldecott and Newbery Honors and carries such titles as Little Bear, you know you will have a winning series. The series is Made by God, where children will read about their favorite animals. As a mom to animal lovers this series is a no brainer.

In the Series:

Jungle Beasts: Featuring the panther, anteater, elephant and Iguana you cannot go wrong in engaging your child. Do you know how many ants an anteater can eat in a day? My little student and I did not until reading this book.

Barnyard Critters: Cows, goats, pigs and chickens are the stars of this book. The illustrations are simply adorable. If you thought pigs enjoyed the living in dirt you may want to check this book out!

Curious Creatures Down Under: This book features my favorite animals; the koala and the platypus. In addition your child will learn about the echidna and the kangaroo.

Polar Pals: Coming to the party are the emperor penguin, arctic tern, polar bear and the arctic fox. The penguin is another favorite animal in my home. Did you know the emperor penguin is the largest penguin in the world?

Forest Friends: I have to applaud the book for making raccoons look cute. After having one tear apart a portion of my roof I was not a big fan of the raccoon. Additionally, your child will read about moose, porcupine and the fox.

For only $3.99 each, my budget is as happy as my new student learning to read. Another favorite feature is that every book has a verse in the beginning. As you teach your child to read the books you can use that verse for memorization. A great series to add into your creation lessons or bible study.

Richele is an eclectic homeschooling mom to four reflections of God’s love whose greatest accomplishment thus far was teaching physics, folding laundry, and playing Candyland simultaneously. Find her blogging at Under the Golden Apple Tree.

Disclosure: Set was provided for the purpose of review.

Time 4 Learning

Elementary, Online, Preschool, Reading No Responses »

Sep 192011

What Is Time 4 Learning?

Time 4 Learning is an online curriculum for PreK – 8th Graders. It can be used to complement their current curriculum or as an entire curriculum in itself to cover language arts, math, science, and social studies.

My Thoughts:

The Positive –

Age appropriate “cartoons” teach the lessons. Lorelei (age 4) and I tested out several different grade levels to see the differences in each. As the grade level goes up, so does the appropriateness of the “cartoons.”
The lessons were fun for Lorelei. She generally enjoys school and learning anyhow, but these were easily presented as games for the most part.
The ability to move at your own pace within grade levels and even beyond.
Easy enough for a 3.5 year old to know how to move to the next lesson and within lessons (easy navigation)
Slow and repetitive (great for younger or slower learners)
Parents are able to see progress reports for their child’s work and set time limits for child to be on the program.
Enhances computer skills
Provides lessons plans and extra printable worksheets

The negative -

Parents can’t select certain lessons to show or not show on a child’s page – would be a helpful option so the parent can let child do “assignments” instead of possibly wandering. Also, would be helpful to not repeat lessons already learned.
Repetitive and slow – great for slower learners, not so great for those who catch on more quickly.
Not what I would consider a complete curriculum – except maybe the Pre-K could possibly stand alone. Time 4 Learning lesson plans are correlated to the learning standards for all 50 states, however I believe there are some things that need to be hands-on and covered in more depth.
Not enough reaction time before the lesson will begin repeating itself. Lorelei would sometimes get very frustrated because she didn’t have enough time to make her decision and click.
Price – Their prices are always available to change, so please check to see what their current pricing is set at. Currently (at time of posting), their program cost about $20 per month for the first child ($14.95 for second child). So, for us, that would be $240 for one year.

My Final Thoughts:

While Lorelei did enjoy the program, it wasn’t right for our family after we considered the yearly cost and the completeness of this particular program compared to what we needed for her. However, if it was less expensive, we might consider it as a “fun activity” to complement her learning. Also, I’m not very comfortable with her being on the computer for a large amount of time – whether it’s schoolwork or not.

Is it for you and your family? You decide. Check out Time 4 Learning and their lesson demos for free!

Disclaimer: I received Time 4 Learning as part of a review. Like always, my thoughts and opinions are my own and are not swayed in any way.

Written by Ashley. Find more of Ashley’s writings and reflections on motherhood, marriage and life on her blog.

Primary Arts of Language: Reading

Elementary, Language Arts, Phonics, Preschool, Reading 1 Response »

Sep 142011

Wow. What a curriculum! Primary Arts of Language: Reading by Jill Pike of Excellence in Writing has put together a fantastic set of materials for teaching reading to your little one.

Using the “blended sound-sight” method of phonics skills and sight words-based education with a playful, game-like approach, children are intended to have fun and progress rapidly at the same time.

There are four stages to the program:

Foundations – Phonics rules and sight words are introduced through games and manipulatives. This stage is very parent-led with mom or dad teaching how to play the games, use the manipulatives and use time wisely. Later in the program, your child will become a more independent learner through the intensive training you offer during this stage.
Activity Time – This stage continues in adding new phonics rules and sight words to your child’s “arsenal”, but also expects independent and partner time to practice the games and manipulatives previously learned.
Discovery – This stage comes after your child has a good grasp of phonetic decoding skills. Your child is given small stacks of word cards daily and asked to independently work on decoding (reading) the words. Once decoded, he comes to you to read them aloud.
The Library – In this final stage, you simply provide appropriate books from a list of easy, medium and hard books for your child to read. He is expected to read the book aloud with you and again on his own at first, until progressing to simply reading on his own or aloud to siblings.

As all of the stages are progressing, there is a general theme of daily activities followed: poetry, journal, phonics and printing/composition. A poem becomes the “centerpiece” of each lesson with the same poem being used for several days. During this time your child will develop rich language, comprehension strategies, memorization skills and begin to internalize writing techniques. Phonics skills are taught and practiced in a variety of ways:

The Phonetic Farm is a full-color folder picturing a farm in which your child adds sticker characters to help remember and organize all the phonics rules he’ll learn throughout the program. (It’s super-cute and lots of fun adding the stickers to the folder!)
Phonics Games of all sorts are provided for lessons and independent practice of phonics rules. You’ll find the games printed in the back of the teacher’s manual for your to cut, color and paste. So that putting together all the games isn’t overwhelming, you’re encouraged to create the games with your child as each is introduced.
The Sight Word Card Game is created by you on index cards and used in various ways suggested through the lessons to increase your child’s sight word recognition.

The author has also written The Primary Arts of Language: Writing (which I’ll review at another time for you) that should be used concurrently with this curriculum if your child is old enough to learn to print – around five. She suggests that you use the two programs concurrently even if your child is a little younger, limiting the handwriting expected if necessary. The journal and printing/composition portions of daily lessons come from the writing curriculum.

You are provided with a Teacher’s Manual that includes very clear and concise daily lessons plans for 80 lessons. It also includes appendixes of a scope and sequence chart, phonogram chart, poems used in the lessons, alphabetical list of words used in readers, homophones list, chart of words in each discovery card pack, and a list of readers to check out or purchase. The discovery cards are also printed on green card stock in the back of the book for you to cut apart.

A book of Phonetic Games provides you with “game boards” printed on regular paper that you cut, color and paste into folders. Game pieces for each game are printed on card stock. Again, you must cut and color the pieces, then decide how you will affix the pieces to the game board for use over and over again. (A baggie or envelope attached to the back of the folders works well.) You make the games as they are introduced in the lessons, so the construction isn’t overwhelming, and in the end you have an arsenal of phonetic games that your child will be expected to practice throughout the program.

The curriculum set also comes with a DVD-ROM including the author walking you through the program step-by-step as well as many extras like MP3 seminars. But, the best part is two full PDF books of 200+ student worksheets to supplement the daily lessons, as well as four printable early readers.

I tell ya, even with the extra bit of effort it takes to put together the games and print off the student pages from the DVD-ROM, this curriculum is worth it! My little guy is in K4 (will be five in a few months) and is responding well so far. We’re taking it slower than her suggested schedule but he’s doing great and loving the games!

Watch for my review of the companion writing program soon!

-Cindy West is an eclectically Charlotte Mason mom of three kids in high school, middle school and K4. You can find her blogging at Our Journey Westward and find her NaturExplorers and other creative curriculum at Shining Dawn Books.

(Cindy was given a free copy of this curriculum for review upon her request. As always, she shares only her honest opinion.)

My Father’s World: 1st grade

Art, Bible, Charlotte Mason, Classical, Elementary, Geography, Grammar, Hands On, Language Arts, Living books, Music, Nature Study, Phonics, Reading, Science, Spelling, Unit study resources 3 Responses »

Aug 222011

What immediately drew me to My Father’s World is that the curriculum is the fact that it is fairly stand alone. You purchase either the basic set or their deluxe set, and you are ready to go! I adore this as our little library in this rural community really doesn’t have the variety or selection of books that we were used to in San Diego. This means filling in blanks or filling out a curriculum is a challenge now so a curriculum with most of the absolutely necessary books included was a huge plus to us.

However, like the true bibliophiles that we are, I wanted the option of having more, should we be able to find them. True to the Charlotte Mason element, the curriculum is surrounded by the “living books” concept so the usage of books is completely up to you. I love that they include this in every year.

About My Father’s World

My Father’s World isn’t just a Charlotte Mason style offering but rather a unique fusion of sorts, merging both “the best of Charlotte Mason, classical education, and unit studies with a Biblical worldview and international focus.”

My Father’s World offers grades K-2nd grade as a more independent, semi-stand alone element and then moves into a family 5 year cycle that works around a central theme. The 5 year cycle is specifically geared for multiple ages, for grades 2nd-8th so there is savings to be found as families with more than one child use the same program to teach all children in 2nd – 8th grade.

Year One	Geography: Exploring Countries and Cultures
Year Two	History: Creation to the Greeks
Year Three	History: Rome to the Reformation
Year Four	U.S./World History: Exploration to 1850
Year Five	U.S./World History: 1850 to Modern Times

They also offer a bridge year called Adventures in My Father’s World, which is geared for families 2nd or 3rd graders who have no siblings in 4th – 8th grade.(We will be doing this program next year as I have a 4year old and a 7 year old.)

Our Adventure

Currently we are working our way though My Father’s World, 1st grade. I adore this program as it is laid out in an easy to follow, daily workbook fashion. It’s easy for me to combine the integrated social studies, science, art and Bible elements with both kids, while focusing independently on the phonics and math. My boys love that they are learning together, doing the same things, despite their age and grade differences.

The curriculum does include a 1st grade phonics-based reading program that focuses on the Bible and more fun, hands-on math activities. We include our own K4 phonics and and additional math program (Math U See) for both boys as I found their math not as intensive as I think it needs to be for the grade.

One major element we always seemed to miss with our previous years curriculum was the arts; we simply didn’t always make time for them.

With My Father’s World, art, music, crafts,hands-on learning is a major part of the curriculum. Everything is planned out and outlined for you to see the day before so you can prep easily, using common household items most of the time. My boys have enjoyed this more consistent addition to our learning and I have found they have better attitudes and have better lesson retention.

The only cons that I have experience thus far is that the 1st grade teachers book is only formatted with a daily lesson plan. It lacks the easy, one glace, weekly grid that their latter versions offer. I also felt the math that is included is a bit weak for the age group so we needed to supplement an additional math program. Ultimately, minor things that we easily rectified.

For a full curriculum, It’s fairly affordable, especially when you compare it to larger, more known companies. For the 1st grade curriculum, you can elect to get their basic package for only $136.oo or their deluxe package for $239.00. As the years grow in complexity, so does the number of books included which will contribute to a steady raise in the overall costs. However, remaining competitive and within reach for most families.

Overall, My Father’s World, or MFW, has been a blessing to our household. It’s affordable, fun, engaging and the children really do learn.

Poetry for Young People

Charlotte Mason, Classical, Elementary, Language Arts, Literature, Living books, Reading 2 Responses »

Aug 192011

“I dwell in Possibility/A fairer house than Prose,/More numerous of windows,/Superior of doors.” Emily Dickinson, “I dwell in Possibility”

Poetry is a flexible area of study. It can be studied on its own, and for its own merit. On the other hand, born of cultural, historical, and personal experience, poetry can enhance the study of any subject. For me, the trouble with poetry is how to narrow it down. There just seems to be so much of it to choose from.

The Poetry for Young People series provides an excellent introduction to a number of poets. Each volume contains the poetry of a specific poet or area of poetry. The poems are chosen for their suitability to a young audience, and as poetry representative of the poet’s body of work. Illustrations accompany the poems. A short biography, also sensitive to the needs of a young audience, opens each book.

I have found this series useful in two ways. It has been a simple task to browse these pages to find a poem to enhance a particular study. As the poems have been chosen because they are appropriate for children, I need only choose the poem that best suits my needs.

More often, however, I choose a poet to study for a month or six weeks. As a family, we read several poems each week until we have finished the book. The Poetry for Young People series makes this process very simple, as each volume contains a nice number of poems. Each book serves as a gentle introduction to the work of a poet.

This may be the year for poetry study at your house!

Raid your local library for the Poetry for Young People series.

-Most days find Susan on the couch reading to her children, in the floor “playing” math, and generally in the middle of a
good-sized mess. A love for the Lord, a love for her little ones, and a love of learning have led Susan and the wonderful man she married to an educational philosophy that is Well-Trained Mind-inspired classical and Charlotte Mason,
with a touch of the traditional.