This week we were homeschooling on vacation. The weather at the beginning of our vacation was perfection! We had LOTS of pool time. We’ve reached a new milestone where I can actually read poolside while they play. I don’t have to be in there the entire time.
 Poolside popsicles with a new friend. |
 Heaven is: happy kids who don’t need tubs! |
In the middle of our vacation there was one really rainy day. We spent the morning at a train museum, followed by lots of books and snuggles.
 Bull in a china shop ain’t got nothin’ on Leo in a train museum! |
Rain makes for lots of earthworms, so the following morning there was a worm hunt.
 Bonus: caterpillar! |
Then, when Schizz arrived, there was the highlight of the trip: STORYLAND.
 Seuss being Seuss-tastic! |
 Diggers. |
 High fives to the Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe. |
 These two rascals SOAKED poor T. She was LIVID. |
 Please Mister Postman! |
When we returned home, we were in need of a lazy day. So we had one, filled with fort-building, book reading, swing-swinging, berry picking, tree climbing, and laughter.
 Backyard berries. |
 That’s how Seuss rolls! |
We wrapped up our week with a family beach party.
 Nerf guns, people! |
 I love you. In rune. |
We wrapped up the week by maxing out the library’s summer reading prizes. Apparently, I could have stopped logging books over 100 books ago. Oops!
 Book loot. |
What about you guys? Do you do homeschooling on vacation?
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Since we can’t know what knowledge will be most needed in the future, it is senseless to try to teach it in advance. Instead, we should try to turn out people who love learning so much and learn so well that they will be able to learn whatever needs to be learned.
~John Holt
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Caitlin Fitzpatrick Curley
Cait is a school psychologist, mom to three amazing children, and an unexpected homeschooler. She loves nature, good books, board games, strong coffee, and dancing in her kitchen. Cait believes homeschooling *can* be almost all fun and games!
Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.
Cait co-hosts The Homeschool Sisters Podcast and is co-founder of Raising Poppies, a community for parents of gifted and twice-exceptional children. Cait is also founder of the Family Book Club at My Little Poppies, a fantastic community of book-loving parents and the Gameschool Community at My Little Poppies, a vibrant community of gameschoolers.
Cait is a contributing writer for Simple Homeschool. Her work has also appeared on The Huffington Post, The Mighty, Scary Mommy, GeekMom, and many others. You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram
and G+.
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Hi,
Was just about to send you a message asking for some good book recommendations for my son. Your son’s “Goodreads” list will be very helpful for us. Thanks so much for sharing! Glad you had a fun vacation 🙂
I have more recs for you but I’m beat… Tomorrow!! 🙂
Thanks :-)!
Oh my goodness! I just posted a huge list and it disappeared. Gotta love the internet. Let’s see what I can remember 🙂
Okay, I forget how old your little poppies are, but when our eldest first started reading independently, he would consume an entire series at a time. He still does this, with other books sprinkled in.
The psych rec’d that we record what he is reading, so I started the Goodreads account on May 9th. I highly recommend Goodreads, as you can just scan a barcode via your phone if you have the app. Anyway, I’m sure I’m going to repeat some of what is on his Goodreads, as he tends to reread favorites, but here goes…
As for non-series reads, he *loves* anything by Dahl. Also loved Cricket in Times Square, Charlotte’s Web, The One and Only Ivan, …
His first love was the Magic Treehouse Series, especially the resource guides (nonfiction companions). He’s read them all multiple times. He also loved Flat Stanley, Junie B. Jones, 39 Clues, A-Z mysteries, Calendar Mysteries, How to Train your Dragon, Judy Moody, Geronimo/Thea Stilton, Goosebumps, The Rainbow Fairies, Zack Files, Vet Volunteers, Humphrey, The Boxcar Children, Ivy and Bean, Genius Files, Dork Diaries, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Dear Dumb Diary, Captain Underpants, Magic Pickle, Artie the Doughnut, Cam Jansen, Encyclopedia Brown, Magic School Bus, The Bailey School Kids…
He’ll read virtually any series. The only one he rejects is Ramona (and I believe he *is* the male version of Ramona), which I loved as a kid. He probably rejects it because I said I loved it 🙂
A lot of the series books are terribly written but I’m a huge fan of letting them read whatever.
This spring he zipped through Harry Potter and stopped after the 4th book (on his own- I think it got to be too much). Then he moved on to Secrets of Droon and Dragonslayer books. On tap he has: Mysterious Benedict Society, The Giver series, Percy Jackson, and Artemis Fowl.
He’s also into the “horrible histories” and “murderous maths” books. There is a series for Science too and I’m blanking on the name of it.
He also loves the abridged classics. The hardcover books with the red titles.
I’m sure I’m missing oodles but that’s a running start for you 🙂 I really need to write a blog post about this because we are voracious readers over here. I will continue to update his Goodreads account in the meantime 🙂
My boy will be five at the end of September. I had just started reading chapter books to him the other week, only to find out that he is capable of reading them on his own :-). Since he is enjoying them, I think I’m still going to stick with my curriculum plan as far as read-alouds go, but definitely need to step up the level of what he’s reading independently. When I started trying to figure out some new titles for him, the choices seemed a bit overwhelming. There are just so many more books available at this reading level than when I was a kid! Definitely going to check out lots of your recommended picks! Thanks so much for steering me in the right direction 🙂
Oops! Wasn’t done 🙂 I was going to say it’s tough to keep them “in” books once they start. I can hardly keep up, and I’m a reader myself. What I struggle with is reading aloud. I read often to my kids but Leo no longer likes to sit and listen to books I read because he can read more, faster independently. Bittersweet! I will have to find a good, on the edge of your seat, book for homeschool this Sept and hide it somewhere between read alouds! 🙂
I love it!!! Isn’t it crazy how reading develops?? My son just want from not reading to reading an entire book. I was flabbergasted!
Sounds like a good plan :-D!