7 books we are reading aloud this year

We are gearing up for another year of homeschooling. Each new season with my children becomes a cherished favorite, and I do not write that to be applauded or eye-rolled. I have loved all of the ages & stages of my children. Even the repetitive homeschool moments.

Recently I read a mother’s thoughts, how mothers unintentionally “wish away” their children’s childhood by constantly looking forward to upcoming seasons. Instead, we mothers must learn to enjoy the present, with all its delights and difficulties. Can you relate?

Now that I have two children reading, I am gathering a collection of read aloud books. Even as my children move towards independence, I am happy to have them nearby so I can read aloud. Sometimes I read to them during lunch as it’s a wonderfully easy way for me to keep my four children at the table eating (wink). But we always read aloud to signal the end of the day, while the sun begins it’s descent and they are worn out from a day of play.

I polled some of my friends for read aloud suggestions for first and second grades. Based on their suggestions, here is what I bought:

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren

Dear Mr. Henshaw by Beverly Cleary

The Mouse and the Motorcycle by Beverly Cleary

Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

Stuart Little by E.B. White

Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O’Dell

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

Earlier this year we built a bookshelf for our living room. A few months before that, I had re-arranged the furniture and we moved our television to the basement. Well, wait. Now that I’m writing this out I can’t quite remember the timeline of when we removed the television? I guess you’d call that a success. Indeed so.

Now we use our living room for reading, fort-building, afternoon daydreaming, time outs, and housing plants. Here’s the latest state of our bookshelf. It’s filling up nicely, wouldn’t you say so? Now, to find shelf space for our newest stack of books…

One more thing I wanted to share: I purchased all seven titles second-hand from thriftbooks.com. I was thrilled to find copies of each book that our family would enjoy for many years. I even choose books that were listed as “in very good condition” for roughly $4/each. Amazon is a favorite for many, many items, but thriftbooks is a fun alternative for growing our book collection. Have you shopped with them? (This is not a sponsored post.)

Which books have you read? Which do you own? What books are on your “want to read” list?

See you in the comments!

xx, Maggie