One of the new projects I’m adding this year is to read a book a week with David. Since I love reading so much and since he’s just learning to read I thought it would be a wonderful way for us to spend time together. The idea is to pick books that would take 2-4 hours to read out loud. And I will likely read all of the book to him. I might ask him to read sections. I haven’t decided yet if it will be two-three days a week or a little each day. At the end of the book, we will create a little book log with his favorite quote from the book and some of his thoughts.
To capture all of our books, I’ve created a simple template to fill each week:
Just in case any of you are interested in doing something similar or using the template for yourself, here it is: download me.
My plan is to print these 4×6 cards regularly and put them in an album similar to what I used for my Weekly Gratitude project. I love these colorful albums from Target and they are less than four bucks.
The idea is to make sure we don’t just read but that David spends time reflecting on the book and tells me a little about what he took away from it.
Since I didn’t grow up in the United States and didn’t learn English until my teenage years, I haven’t read most of these books either, so it will be extra-fun for me. I’ve asked my awesome friend Kathy to send me a list (she’s a teacher) of books she’d recommend.
Here’s what I have so far:
- Alvin’s Swap Shop series – Clifford B Hicks
- Because of winn-dixie
- Black Beauty
- Bridge to Terabithia
- Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
- Charlotte’s Web
- Chasing Vermeer – Blue Balliet
- Cricket in Times Square – George Selden
- Danny Champion of the World
- Everything on a Waffle – Polly Horvath
- Fantastic Mr. Fox
- Freckle Juice – Judy Blume
- Frindle – Andrew Clements
- From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E Frankweiler – E.L. Konigsburg
- Hank the Cowdog series – John Erickson
- Harriet the Spy – Louise Fitzhugh
- Holes
- Homer Price – Robert McCloskey
- How to Eat Fried Worms – Thomas Rockwell
- James and the Giant Peach
- Last of the Really Great Wangdoodles – Julie Edwards
- Lemony Snicket series
- Lion witch wardrobe – CS Lewis
- Little House in the Big Woods
- Mad Scientists’ Club series – Bertrand Brinley
- Magic Treehouse series – Mary Pope Osborne
- Maniac Magee – Jerry Spinelli
- Mouse and the Motorcycle (or most of Beverly Cleary – some are girl-oriented, but i think that’s fine)
- Mr. Popper’s Penguins – Richard Atwater
- Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH – Robert O’Brien
- Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle series – Betty Macdonald
- Pippi Longstocking series – Astrid Lindgren
- Silverwings series- Kenneth Oppel
- Stuart Little
- the BFG
- The Borrowers series – Mary Norton
- the cricket in times square
- The Golden Compass
- The Secret Garden
- The Tale of Despeatoux
- The Twenty-one Balloons – William DuBois
- The Westing Game – Ellen Raskin
- Top Secret – John Gardiner
- Tornado – (or most of Betsy Byars)
- Trumpet of Swan
- Tuck Everlasting
- Wimpy Kid series – Jeff Kinney
- Winnie the Pooh
It will be a great way us to spend time together.
As you can tell, I don’t have 52 books here so if you have any suggestions, books you loved as a child, I would love to know about them (pretty please?) and I will add them to this list so everyone else can benefit too. Just remember that my son is six years old and while I will read it, it still needs to be relatively age-appropriate.
Yey, can’t wait to start reading!
