Homeschooling My Kinetic Kids

My oldest (Dragonfly) is almost ten years old and has a lovely group of homeschooled girls she calls her friends.  To capitalize on their friendship and desire to spend time together this summer, the moms have conspired to have them read a few children's novels and meet for book club.  For the month of May, we've been reading "Strawberry Girl," which has been a very interesting and fun read aloud for the beginning of the summer.   "Strawberry Girl"  was written by Lois Lenski in 1945 and won the Newbery Award for it.  The book is set among the "Crackers," rural, poor, white families in Florida during the early 1900s.  We've found it to be a good book for reading aloud because the accent and vocabulary of the "Crackers" is very authentic and can be challenging to read at times, if you're not from that region.  The story has lots of teachable moments about respecting adults, working hard, having compassion for others, dealing with d...

My daughter (age 9/10) has a group of girlfriends her own age.  The moms decided that the girls should have a book club this summer, to encourage them to read good literature.  They'll be getting together once a month to discuss the book and do some fun activities related to themes in the book.  Here's the plan for this year.  The Plan for Summer 2021 May- The Strawberry Girl June- Charlotte's Web July- All of a Kind Family August- TBA As we dive into each classic novel, I'll be posting articles with ideas for ways to engage your kids more on the subjects in the books.  Since I've already done a few blog posts, I've linked them below for you.  I'll add the new posts as well throughout the summer. Of course, you don't need to do a formal book club to get lots of value out of these classic book activities.  Each of them would also make great whole-family read aloud stories and a basis for a unit study in your homeschool.  Let me know in the comments...