What We're Reading: May Edition

We've been busily getting ready for our new baby to arrive any day, as well as starting soccer season, and finally enjoying some warmer weather in Pennsylvania. In the middle of the month, I was swamped with preparing for a free homeschooling conference that I organize for and with my local group.

Still, we managed to read so many books this month, even me! Just a few minutes a day--of morning time, lunchtime read alouds, and moments on the couch--add up to a lot of reading over the course of a month.

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Poetry

This month we continued our study of William Wordsworth and dipped our toes into preparing to see a local Shakespeare in the Park performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. We read the following every day for one week at morning time:

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud by William Wordsworth
I know a bank where the wild thyme blows from A Midsummer Night's Dream by William Shakespeare
She Was a Phantom of Delight by William Wordsworth
I Traveled among Unknown Men by William Wordsworth
To the Cuckoo by William Wordsworth

If you want to see more poems that we enjoy, check out Poetry to Read Aloud.

Morning Time

We finished the following books at morning time this month:

Man Gave Names to All the Animals by Bob Dylan, Illustrated by Jim Arnosky
Curiosity: The Story of a Mars Rover by Markus Motum
The Story of Your Hand by Dr. Alvin Silverstein and Virginia B. Silverstein
Are you a Bee? By Judy Allen and Tudor Humphries
I Survived the Hindenburg Disaster, 1937 by Lauren Tarshis
I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, A.D. 79 by Laren Tarshis
A Day in the Woods by Ronald M. Fisher
Song of the Sea Otter by Edith Thacher Hurd
Franz Schubert and His Merry Friends by Opal Wheeler

We've also been reading at morning time, and will continue to read slowly for some time:

    
The Aesop for Children
The Story of King Arthur and His Knights by Howard Pyle (Free Google Books illustrated edition)
Among the Night People by Clara Dillingham Pierson (Free Google Books illustrated edition)
The Red Fairy Book by Andrew Lang

To see even more books we've enjoyed at morning time, check the Morning Time page.

Lunch-time Read Alouds

  
Tales of Pirates & Buccaneers by Howard Pyle (finished)

The Witch of Blackbird Pond by Elizabeth George Speare (finished)
The Enchanted Castle by E. Nesbit (started)
A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond (started)

Night Book

 

My husband has been reading to the kids:

The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge (finished)
Ember Falls by S.D. Smith (started)

Free Reading

The second-grader has been busy with a few series, included reading many of the Chronicles of Narnia for the first time, after hearing them all read aloud and listening to all of them as audio books several times.

The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book III: The Unseen Guest by Maryrose Wood
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book IV: The Interrupted Tale by Maryrose Wood
Coding Games in Scratch by Jon Woodcock
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place: Book V: The Unmapped Sea by Maryrose Wood
The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis
Beast Academy 4B by Shannon Rogers and Jason Batterson
The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis
The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis
Prince Caspian by C.S. Lewis
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader by C.S. Lewis
The Last Battle by C.S. Lewis
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson by Bette Bao Lord

With the younger children

We've been reading (among many other titles):

Horton Hears a Who by Dr. Seuss
Jan Brett's Animal Treasury by Jan Brett
Uni the Unicorn by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
And Here's to You! by David Elliott
Locomotive by Brian Floca
My Little Train by Satomi Ichikawa
Where the Sidewalk Ends by Shel Silverstein

I've been reading

Homegoing by Yaa Gyasi
The Read-Aloud Family: Making Meaningful and Lasting Connections with Your Kids by Sarah Mackenzie
Educated: A Memoir by Tara Westover
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky
The Light Princess by George MacDonald

Despite the busyness of the month, I finished 5 books! I wholly attribute my reading successes this month to library due dates. Because three of the books were new releases, they all had short loan periods, so I had to read them fast. Also, since I was finally out of renewals for The Brothers Karamazov, there was no more putting it off!

While I didn't always enjoy the long passages and speeches in The Brothers Karamazov, I'm really glad that I read it and I enjoyed it at times. I also enjoyed the other books I read, especially Educated which was a memoir of a woman raised in very odd and difficult circumstances by fanatical survivalists. She was also radically unschooled in that she had no regular or formal schooling until college. I had a hard time putting it down!

I'm also slowly re-reading Home Education by Charlotte Mason with an in-person reading group.

These are most of the books we've been reading outside of our formal lessons. You can see the ones we use during school time at 2nd Grade Plans 2017-2018.

Past Months:

What we're reading: April Edition

What we're reading: February Edition

Read any good books lately?