Happy Martin Luther King Day

I love Martin Luther King Day. While all the other kids in our area have the day off of school, my homeschooler announces to our pastor in front of church during children's message that homeschoolers never get days off. Good boy! Today is certainly not one that I want to take off. Celebrating an important historical figure and role model as Martin Luther King Jr. is something I want to concentrate on in our schooling. Today we read books about Martin Luther King. We took turns reading and listening. We learned a LOT of new vocabulary. Here are some of the titles I especially enjoy:

Center book title

You can tell Dr. King was an inspiring man by the art work he inspired people to create. The illustrations in these books are incredible. The Story of Ruby Bridges is a powerful one for young children. She was a very brave little first grader during a difficult time in the civil rights struggle. Matthew and Tilly is a great book for young ones. This story is the realization of Dr. King's dream. A little black girl and a little white boy are best friends, but it talks about friendship, anger and forgiveness. These are all very immediate topics for young children when the issue of segregation is thankfully so foreign to them. Martin Luther King day is the perfect opportunity to talk about the many shades of skin color and how we should be kind to everyone and get to know them without worrying about what they look like on the outside. These books are very applicable to our lives today.

My eight-year-old learned a lot of new vocabulary words today when we read the I Have a Dream speech. I'm sure he has heard some of them before, but you need multiple hearings to really cement new words into your vocabulary. Words like emancipation, poverty, prosperity, segregation, negro, manacles, divinity and reverend are difficult words that he will very likely not see again... until next year.

MLK timeline activity from the Mailbox 

Happy Belated New Year

As if things weren't busy enough around here, then come the holidays! It was a great month. Things are settling back into a routine. We got a lot of WONDERFUL new books for gifts. My son loves non-fiction and he got some books with bright, colorful photo illustrations. DK readers, National Geographic and Eyewitness books are all winners with my boy. He can find an illustration that interests him and read about it. He is a very visual learner, so this type of book is right up his alley.

He enjoys chapter books if we read together, but when he reads on his own, he will more often pick up one of these books, a Lego magazine, Ask or Appleseeds magazine. All of which, in my opinion, are great choices. I'm amazed at the things he knows from his reading. He would not learn as much reading novels, even though novels are my idea of fun reading. To each their own!

On a sad note, my daughter turned 5, so she received her last Imagination Library book. This program has delivered a much anticipated book to our mailbox every month for FREE thanks to Dolly Parton, our local United Way, and many more sponsors. It is available for all children in our United Way service area from birth until their fifth birthday. We have loved this program and graduation is bittersweet. I will have to look for a quality magazine subscription to take its place. We have enjoyed the Cricket family of magazines for their high quality publication that is completely free of advertising.

If you are struggling with a young reader in this new year, maybe you need to find materials your reader enjoys. Or maybe one of these tips will help you: 12 Best of 2012. Happy 2013!