a book list for Clara

FYI: This is the first a several posts I'm working on about the changes in our "school" so far this school year... not terribly interesting reading, but I needed to document our changes since my blog seems to be where I do most of my planning record keeping. :-)

Clara is in first grade this year. My plan was rather light for her, as I felt it should be for her first grade year (well, at least compared with Alex's plan for this year). However, she has insisted on keeping pace with the amount of work I'm assigning to Alex. One thing she was adamant about was that she wanted a book list like Alex's Ambleside list. See, I had been typing each week up for him and having him manage his own reading schedule for the week. His Ambleside time was after our seat work was done and while I was fixing lunch. Clara was not content to do free reading while he worked on this, she wanted her own list.

I wasn't sure where to start. So, I ended up on Amazon in listmania and found the following lists to get me started...

Ambleside Yr 0 Fall Books List 1
Ambleside Year 0 Fall Books List 2

Next trip to the library, I located several of the books from these lists that I thought were readable for Clara (thankfully, she's a stronger reader than Alex was at this age) and supplemented them with some readers from the seasonal shelf.

Oh, and I also added a couple level 1 math readers from the Mathstart Series.

That was great, but she finished that week's list in TWO days!!! And she also specifically requested some stories to listen to on my iPod like Alex has. So, back to checking out books and looking through Librivox.

My list for her now consists of this basic formula:

Math Readers
Seasonal Books
Ready for Chapter Books Readers assigned by Chapter
A Science Related Book on iPod
A Story Book on iPod
Poetry Book assigned by poem

She is currently really enjoying having her own list and has surprised me with what she has picked up from her reading (and listening). And the thing is... this is all bonus as far as school is concerned. I had planned on this just being free reading time, but instead she's added more math, science, history, etc. to her school schedule! You've got to love it when things work out this way. :-)

So, I think we've finally hit the right number of books for Clara to comfortably read a week during our reading time.

Here's her list for this week...

Math Readers:
Circus Shapes (MathStart 1)
Mighty Maddie (MathStart 1)
Addition Annie (Rookie Readers)

Seasonal Books:
The Best Fall of All
DK Readers: The Secret Life of Trees (Level 2)
Johnny Appleseed (Ready-to-Read. Level 1)
Leaf Jumpers
Autumn Leaves

Henry and Mudge Under the Yellow Moon:
Together in the Fall
Under the Yellow Moon
Thanksgiving Guest

Reading Rainbow Readers: Scary Stories to Read When it's Dark (Reading Rainbow):
Henry's Bedtime Story
Bloody Fingers
Something at the Window

Wild Life in Woods and Fields (iPod):
Peter's Cat
The Greedy Stranger
The Mole and His Home

Birds of the Air (iPod):
Birds' Eggs
Baby Birds
Birds Feeding their Young

The House at Pooh Corner (iPod):
Side 1
Side 2
Side 3
Side 4

Where the Sidewalk Ends:
Flag
Colors
The Loser
Joey
Listen to the Mustn'ts
Jimmy Jet and His TV Set

Okay... enough rambling about this... we're off to swimming and then I'll ramble on about something else! :-)