We are reading Farmer Boy with the kids. I’m trying some new approaches with lessons, and this week we’ve begun with circle time and then reading a chapter from a book on the couch in my bedroom. I nurse Joseph while I read and doing it in my room makes it easy to then lay down the sleeping baby and get the kids started on lessons in the sunroom. It also means I can lock the door and contain the wandering little ones since we have a bathroom and phone in my room and no one needs to leave. Get a mini fridge in there and we’re set. I’m finding trapping them with me is best for now, especially with Kit at work and them stressing the loss of Daddy. 😉

I also have a shelf in our room now with a bin of board books and the Leap Pad toys so they can play with those while I read to the big kids.

Anyway, we only do one chapter a day, another new thing. I heard it discussed at a Charlotte Mason group years ago – don’t race through a book, let the kids ponder on it and connect with it. If we knock out a book in a week they won’t spend as much time thinking about the story vs. us slowing reading it and discussing it and letting them build a relationship with the characters. I think they remember it more when we spread it out. Plus one chapter only leaves them begging for more and eager to get back to lessons the next morning so they can find out what happened. So slow reading seems to be working (though the CM group says slow reading meaning read one chapter a week and we’re doing a chapter a day.) And leaving the kids wanting more is working and starting out our lessons with circle time and then a story keeps the kids excited and quicker to respond when I say it’s time for lessons.

So, the funny. We’re reading Farmer Boy and they were discussing popcorn and the Native Americans bringing some to the Pilgrims. Christopher tells his father about what we’ve read (and we do narration right after we read as well, with Christopher and Moira.) Kit came into me with a perplexed look and said, “Christopher told me you read about the native americans and the muslims and popcorn?” I had to think about that for a minute and then we realized – OH, the pilgrims! Not the muslims, the pilgrims. Those are close spellings, I can see how a seven year old could mix them up. 😀