Read-at-Home Kids Report: September 2019

September was out first month of the school year, and looking back over the weeks, we got a good amount of reading done despite morning sickness and our school workload.

Family Read-Alouds

The most timely read-aloud we shared this month was Max and Ruby and Twin Trouble by Rosemary Wells,  a review copy of which arrived just days after we learned we were expecting twins. (My review of the book is here.) Though it doesn't have everything I'd want in a book about anticipating newborn twins, it's one of the only books out there, and it helped us get the conversational ball rolling.

That same week, we also read The Ballad of the Pirate Queens by Jane Yolen and went to the adventure playground to act out some pirate scenes on the pirate ship play equipment.

Our first lunchtime read-aloud in September was the second book of the Doll People series, The Meanest Doll in the World. The girls loved it and wanted to continue with the series, but we had library books that had to be read that I said we needed to finish first. We read Gooseberry Park by Cynthia Rylant, followed by the last four books in her Cobble Street Cousins series. We easily read a single volume in one sitting, and the girls loved the sweet coziness of the stories.

At dinner, my husband read aloud King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table by Emma Gelders Sterne and Barbara Lindsay, and illustrated by Gustaf Tenggren, Misty of Chincoteague by Marguerite Henry and The Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt by Elizabeth Payne (which went along with our history unit on Ancient Egypt.)

Little Miss Muffet (Age 5 years, 10 months)

In addition to her assigned reading for school (The Bears on Hemlock Mountain by Alice Dalgliesh,  Emily's Runaway Imagination by Beverly Cleary, The Story of Dr. Dolittle by Hugh Lofting, The Key to the Treasure by Peggy Parish, and Sokar and the Crocodile by Alice Woodbury Howard), Miss Muffet spent her free time in September reading several volumes from Courtney Sheinmel's Stella Batts series and a bunch of books in the Little Miss series by Roger Hargreaves (including Little Miss Twins).

Little Bo Peep (Age 4)

Little Bo Peep enjoyed read-alouds about animals during school time this month. We read The Mother Whale by Edith Thacher Hurd and Clement Hurd, followed by Here Come the Bears by Alice Goudey. She also continued listening to the audio recordings of favorite picture books and "reading" wordless books from the Carl series by Alexandra Day. She also practiced all month to learn to read Rag by Barney Saltzburg, which she mastered just in time for her fourth birthday at the end of the month. She was also enamored of The Frog Princess retold by J. Patrick Lewis and illustrated by Gennady Spirin. (The main draw was the character of Baba Yaga.)

Little Jumping Joan (Age 23 months)

As Little Jumping Joan starts to talk more and more, she has become more vocal about the books she wants to hear. This month, her favorites were Eloise Wilkin Stories, Little Excavator by Anna Dewdney, Lullaby and Good Night: Songs for Sweet Dreams by Julie Downing, and No, David! by David Shannon. She has learned to recite almost every page in No, David and she happily reminds us of various scenes that have made a particular impression on her, such as the page where David picks his nose, and the one where he runs away naked.