Book Reviews: Sticking With It and Worrying Too Much

One thing we can all agree on in our family is that we love to read!  My husband and I enjoy fantasy books, like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time series.  We also enjoy various historical, self-improvement, and humorous reads, among others.  Reezle has a penchant for animal books, from birding to caring for cats, and other non-fiction.  And Little G can't get enough of his children's human body and science books, when he isn't toting around his favorite math workbook.

Since reading is a well-received way of learning new information for my kiddos, I like to get them books that help them through various things they may be struggling with.  Recently, I bought my daughter a workbook on anxiety.  While her brother is the type to shrug off most things, she tends to worry, worry, worry about the smallest things.  And since worries tend to grow over time, I thought it would be wise to address it now and provide her with tools to manage the feelings of stress.  Among those tools is What To Do When You Worry Too Much: A Kid's Guide to Overcoming Anxiety by Dawn Huebner, Ph.D.  It's full of brilliant metaphor and exercises to help children understand and manage their fears.  I would give it 5 stars and would absolutely recommend it to anyone who wants to help a child who may be prone to worry.  Recommended reading level: age 6 or grade 1 and up.  Mama Bonn's thoughts: I think this is a suitable workbook for children through elementary school.

Little G, our easily-frustrated kiddo, often has little to no patience with himself any time he doesn't already know how to do something.  Learning, though not difficult for him, causes frustration because the little dude feels like he should know it already.  My goal with him is to help him realize that making mistakes is part of the process of learning, and actually helps us retain our knowledge better if we don't allow the frustration to be the focus.  My mantra with him has been everyone makes mistakes, and that is perfectly okay!  He doesn't seem to be convinced, so I looked around for, of course, a book. I found a winner!  Try And Stick With It by Cheri J. Meiners, M. Ed. discusses the very issues Little G is struggling with and offers useful suggestions.  We have several of Cheri J. Meiners' books, and they're all wonderful so far.  They even have a section in the back of the book with information on how parents (grandparents, teachers, etc.) can discuss various sections of the book in more depth.  Again, a 5 star book that I would highly recommend.  Recommended reading level: Reading level states 4 years and up.  Mama Bonn's thoughts: For independent readers, I would say it's a great book for 1st graders, so the age range on this is probably preschool through grade 2 or 3, generally speaking.

Summer Reading

Over the summer, I've heard so many parents discussing difficulties they're facing with summer reading lists and keeping their children interested in books. I truly believe it is the way reading and literature are presented to children in schools. Most people don't dislike reading; they dislike being required to read. I think most people would develop an aversion to eating cake if they were made to do it, and required to answer 10 questions about the taste, texture, and content. Schools require reading for content, so there is a sadly large number of children who don't even understand the concept of reading for enjoyment.

If the summer reading is driving you nuts, there are a few things you can do. A lot of local libraries offer summer reading incentive programs. After reading a certain number of books, the kiddos get a prize! Book It! has a summer reading program. What kiddo doesn't love earning a pizza? Barnes & Noble and Chuck E. Cheese's both offer reading incentives as well. And if your kids have a particular interest (space, karate, cars, etc.) you can buy them a book or two on their topic of interest to get them interested. It's all about taking the focus off of reading as a chore and reminding them that there is so much to enjoy about reading. Finding a fun series will also keep a lot of kids tuned in. My daughter is always looking for the latest cool book series since she started on Junie B. Jones in 1st grade! The Judy Moody books are great, too, and I just discovered they have a related series featuring her brother, Stink. (Yes, classy, I know - ha!)

I remember when I realized that reading could be fun. I was 9 years old, and I'd just discovered The Babysitters Club. I couldn't put the books down. Now my daughter is reading them on my Kindle, and I love it!


We hear no complaints from Sticky. She loves the attention from her non-furry siblings, and I think she even enjoys the stories when they take turns reading aloud to one another. As soon as she sees them curled up with a book, she snuggles herself beside them to take advantage of this relaxing, cozy time.

Ah, summer. We're loving it. Lots of time to read books on topics from volcanoes to birds, and everything in between. Reezle will be taking Spanish this fall, so I downloaded the Kindle version of Spanish for Dummies for her. As for me, I'm waiting for Brandon Sanderson to release the remainder of my beloved Wheel of Time series!

Happy reading!

Our Happy Monday

Our happy Monday was a busy Monday. I discovered the joys of coffee yesterday, at wits end with this constant exhaustion I feel due to my inability to sleep like a normal person. So today I tried it again, and discovered (or should I say rediscovered?) the joy of heart palpitations. Caffeine and I don't get along. I knew it 15 years ago, but somehow I thought that exhaustion might trump caffeine intolerance. Nope. So, on to my next plan to feel less zombie-like during our school days. You know, once I figure out what that is.

One of the many things I am enjoying about homeschooling is the flexibility of both scheduling and curriculum content. I'm always supplementing with something, and I find that the internet truly is a wonderful resource. A History lesson about the 7 continents and their well-known landmarks, geography, and climate are much more interesting with the aid of YouTube videos. When I was in school, we basically had one or two pictures in a textbook (sometimes) and our imaginations. Videos about the Great Barrier Reef (Australia), the Great Wall of China (Asia), castles (Europe), The Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, and Mt. Rushmore (North America, obviously), penguins (Antarctica), rainforests and macaws (South America), and giraffes (Africa) kept both of the kids engaged and interested. Better yet? They were talking about it for the rest of the day. Good stuff.

For art class, while discussing how Joan Miro lived in Barcelona, Spain and went to study art in Paris, France, we used Google Maps (including street view) to find out what both places look like and how far away from home he went to study (roughly 11 hours by today's travel, in case you were wondering). Reezle decided she would like to visit Barcelona and Paris, especially after we visited the Eiffel Tower via Google's street view. And today, we looked at various images of the earth while we studied the earth's poles and the equator.



An abstract drawing R made for Art using shapes and lines.

With week four of homeschool underway, we're all still loving it. Little G had his assessment yesterday and, like his sister and just as we expected, he scored well above and received the same recommendations as R. Officially, he will be starting some first grade curriculum, probably later this week. He is very excited and keeps asking me to check the OLS (online school) to see if it is there yet, even though I told him it probably won't be until later in the week or possible even next week. He finished his Kindergarten Math book tonight after dinner, so it will be mostly Study Island and working through the remaining Kindergarten lessons in the OLS to keep him busy while we wait for the new curriculum to update on the site.

Reezle will also be starting curriculum for the next grade level because she is assessing out of Math and Language Arts; I'm just waiting to hear back from our second grade teacher on when. I'm just happy that both of them are so interested in learning. Or, um, all three of them if you count the cat; she hasn't missed a lesson yet.

Fall is definitely in the air, with cool nights that bring thoughts of changing leaves, Halloween, squash soup and cups of cocoa to mind. This is my favorite season, the only downside of which is the fact that my least favorite season follows. For now, we enjoy. I hope to make some homemade applesauce with the kids, and we will be making apple shirts soon, which I can hardly wait to post about!

Warm and Fuzzies, Books, and Assessments

Today was warm and fuzzy trade in day!

R and Little G each chose a new book from the prize redemption selection (which mommy needs to replenish very soon at the rate they're going) and they spend the latter part of Language Arts reading their new books quietly to themselves, then to each other, and finally to me. Little G chose Splish, Splat, Splat, a super cute book about a cat, and R chose Do Cats Always Land On Their Feet? (the answer is no, in case you were wondering).


R also had an assessment this afternoon with her teacher contact through the virtual school. She read three stories to assess her fluency, or the rate at which she reads orally. She reads at 140 words per minute, which according to NAEP is a grade 4 average. R is just starting grade 2. She also did an assessment for math, for which she had 8 minutes to answer 20-some questions of varying degrees of difficulty. She wasn't expected to finish all of the problems, but she did. The national average is 10-24 points, and the goal is 15 points. R got 47 points out of a possible 50.

In light of her results, we are discussing moving her up to the grade 3 curriculum so she is challenged. R, of course, is very excited about this because she loves to learn and the idea of new material she has never encountered had her jumping around like a kid waiting for Santa.

Little G has his assessment on Monday, and I expect similar results. He's actually been helping R with spelling and grammar since last year when he was in preschool. He is another one with a voracious appetite for knowledge; he worked from page 60-something in his Math workbook to page 109 in a matter of hours today. I think the curriculum, if we followed it, has him somewhere around page 30. He knows everything in the book, and mastered most of it (colors, shapes, number identification) before he even started preschool, so it's just busy work. I really look forward to getting him into some advanced curriculum so I can feel like I am teaching him something. Meanwhile, he continues to do addition, subtraction and multiplication flash cards and play chess with Daddy, and he works on a grade 2 workbook with various math and language arts material in it for fun. And he reads and reads and reads, which satisfies some of his thirst for knowledge.

I love being a part of this. And I had another great talk with my grandma about it, wherein I admitted that I had wanted to tell her about homeschooling sooner but worried about what she would think. She just kept saying she was proud of me and my kids, and that totally made my day :)

The Cat at Night

We love books in our family, so I thought it would be a fun addition to our homeschool blog to discuss some of what we are reading and offer some mini reviews. Our most recent book love is The Cat at Night by Dahlov Ipcar.


The Cat at Night became an instant favorite for us. Bright, colorful, and beautifully illustrated pages tell the story of a cat's nighttime adventures through city and countryside. Fun and informative, the book gives readers a few insights into the mysterious noctournal nature of cats and why the darkness is not a problem for them. Perfect for a bedtime story to read to your children, or to have them read to you!