Tag Archives: books

Homeschooling

Chapter book series for 1st grade boys

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I have mentioned before how much I want my boys to enjoy reading as much as I do.

With that in mind I try to keep them supplied with many books that will keep that fire going!

Here are some of our favorites.

1. Geronimo Stilton

My son eats these up!

He will finish one and then start it all over again.

The novels are written in a really fun way with lots of different fonts and a lot of colorful pictures.

They also have graphic novels that are written more like comic books and teach about different parts of history.

I love these!

2. Magic Tree House

My son and I really enjoy the Magic Tree house books.

We are pretty careful about introducing magic in our house so some of the later ones have a bit too much of that for me.

I do love how much they teach about history and different places in the world though.

The first twenty or so books are really light on the magic so those are my favorites.

3. Imagination Station Books

These are basically a Christian version of the Magic Tree House.

They are very similar but with the whole imagination station twist and a Christian perspective.

I buy every new one that comes out!

4. The Magic School Bus Chapter Books

I love anything that will teach and be entertaining at the same time so of course I love the magic school bus!!!

We also own all of the movies!

I am a little bit addicted!!!

There are many more good books out there but these are the main ones that make my little man really happy!

Unless of course it involves superheros…

This list is more about the books both of us really like I guess!

Hope this helps some of you!

Homeschooling

Explorers ~Columbus and Oceans!

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Two of the books that did not get pictured in this shot are “The Magic School Bus on the ocean floor” and Geronimo Stilton “The discovery of America“.

We did one day on Marco Polo before we started on Columbus.

I finally caved and bought a grammar book.

I really like this one! The lessons are simple and the boys are retaining a lot!

He is reading the Geronimo Stilton book “The Discovery of America”.

We read it all together for the first book on Columbus but then he wanted to read it on his own as well.

We finally got to use our Aquarium guide!

I might have gotten a little bit to enthusiastic about it.

We were reading about feeder shrimp and saw one in with the eel, it then climbed up on the eel and looked like it was going to clean it’s mouth!

I was practically jumping up and down and yelling…

An employee came up and asked if we saw the eel.

Um, yeah. I saw it thank you…

This is at the Jenks Aquarium.

Since we were learning about oceans we did this salt water experiment.

All you need is water, two glasses, two eggs, and some salt.

It worked great!

The boys loved it!

The Santa Maria.

Columbus looked like a viking and his first mate dressed like a storm trooper.

You didn’t know that?

Hmm, they must have left it out of some of the history books.

We made this so the boys could see how sails worked.

We put it in the bathtub and used a fan for the wind.

One of the things I like so much about RightStart math is how hands on it is!

They get to play some sort of game almost every day.

His loosing face.

Homeschooling

Vikings!!!

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We are doing Explorers this month and I decided to start us out with Vikings!

We did not take Memorial Day off, instead we took a canoe out and I talked to the boys about exploring, why we would do it, and how.

They also watched some of the History Channels “Great Explorers” that we got from the library.

We learned about Navigation at the same time and with that we read a Max Axiom book about Magnetism.

A book we read that is not pictured is “Asgard Stories Tales from Norse Mythology” that I downloaded for free on my kindle.

We only read one story out of it but I really enjoyed it.

I have always liked mythology and the boys are in love with Thor so it worked out really well for us!

I got the idea for them to draw their own compass from my friend, here.

It really helped the boys remember directions.

I found the instructions for how to make your own compass on one of my favorite sites!

How Stuff Works!

We also used my husband’s Iphone app Sky View to find where the North star would be. (It was not dark enough before the boys bedtime to see it)

To end the week we went for a hike and I brought two compasses for the boys.

They had to find our way in and out and could only tell me where to go using North, South, East, or West.

Or NW,SW,SE,NE, ect…

I had them stop about half way through and pretend they did not have a compass.

They had to tell me how they would get us home using the sun.

It was early morning so it was pretty easy to tell which way was east and west.

Then I asked them what we could use to make there own compass if we needed one in the woods and did not have one.

A frictionless surface(like water).

Something that floats(like bark).

A piece of metal(like a needle).

A magnet.

My son thought we should make one right then and take apart my camera to see if there was a magnet inside!

I told him no.

He said survivorman uses whatever he has to make what he needs…

If we are in a survival situation I might(might) give up my camera.

Maybe.