Homeschooling Books: Round One

Well, we are a few weeks into our adventure of a year of homeschooling two of our children and we are still settling into a rhythm and routine. We have been using many books as part of our learning, quiet time and even free play. Thankfully, my kids love books, have curious minds and love to read and learn more.

We wanted to share some incredible Publishers, mostly here in North America that offer awesome titles for reading, learning and developing a sense of wonder in children.

1. Familius -They have a lot of amazing picture books that are engaging but also teach and reinforce concepts to children. The Day Punctuation Came to Town and The Little I Who Lost His Dot are both incredible books to reinforce concepts for writing. The author, Kimberlee Gard has a new book coming out this winter called Snoozapalooza that looks adorable which helps children with counting and rhyming. One other book we will be using this year from Familius is Florence and Her Fantastic Family Tree which tells the story of a little girl creating her family tree for school. It is a great starting off point to introduce where we are from and what different families can look like.

2. Raincoast Books - We have read so many books from Raincoast over the years as they truly offer such a wide variety of childrens picture and activity books. Our newest favourites from them are Over and Under the Rainforest. There are few other books in this series and the illustrations are stunning. This book captures the beauty and life over and under the canopy in the Rainforest. We see so many art and writing activities stemming from this book. The Ultimate Book of Horses by Twirl is the dream book for horse lovers. We love adding a few new books to our collection that our children are interested in to encourage their curiosity. This book has so many lift the flaps and surprises which is so captivating for kids.

3. Storey Publishing - Backyard Explore Bird Watch is an incredible book for our upcoming unit on North American Birds. It is filled with information about a variety of different birds, but also has activities, puzzles and even stickers to go along with the learning. It is a must have for any nature lover. If you don’t know the author Julia Rothman, you need to know her. Her collection of books is stunning and the layout of each book is engaging and appealing to readers of all ages. We are currently reading Ocean Anatomy and it is filled with beautiful drawings on every page, depicting everything there is to know about the ocean. Farm Anatomy, Nature Anatomy and Food Anatomy are also part of her collection and each one is beautifully created. I recently discovered the books have coinciding notebooks and puzzles that you can also purchase to add to the learning which look amazing!

4. Workman Publishing - These Paint by Sticker books are a favourite around here (They even have some for adults!). They are the perfect creative, quiet activity for kids that they can do independently. There are so many different themes and varieties to choose from like Unicorns, Animals, Ocean, Halloween, Christmas (perfect stocking stuffer) etc.

My son is really into making and reading comic books right now. He is constantly drawing comic books featuring animals, his cousins, star wars characters and I’m “super-mom” is next on his list. I love adding a few books into our read-alouds that encourage my children’s current interests. Awesome Minds Comic Book Creators and Awesome Minds: Video Game Creators are chapter books that share some insight into the history of how comic books and video games have evolved over the years. Both books touch on the history and major advances in the genres but share the information in a kid friendly way. These would be awesome for late elementary and early middle school readers!

5. The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls - This is our current read aloud chapter book series we are reading in our home. This series is about a couple children who time travel to learn more about the Bible and deepen their faith. We are starting with Book One called The Beginning. This book is all about Creation from Genesis 1-3 and the children are on adventures looking for an ancient scroll. I read these out loud to the kids while they sit and listen, or colour or draw.

7. Manda Group - Later on this year we are going to be doing a mini birds unit and learn a little bit about the Arctic so we found this new book which is actually two books in one: North Pole/ South Pole. You read all about the North Pole discovering answers to questions like “What is the Arctic?”, learn about different animals etc. and then you flip the book over and you can read all about the South Pole. Our birds unit will go perfectly with Sounds of Nature: World of Birds. We first discovered these books on vacation in Palm Springs 2 years ago and loved them! Each page hosts a different habitat and you discover birds from each habitat. However, the magic is that on each page you can push a button and hear the sounds the birds make. It is remarkable. There are a few other books including Sounds of Nature: World of Oceans we love. If your children like books that make sounds The Story Orchestra: Carnival of the Animals, which hosts 10 different musical excerpts from the musical composition Carnival of the Animals, all played by an orchestra. It is incredible!

While these are technically not just books, Bendon creates so many educational items for children. They do also create iittle reader non-fiction books that are awesome for specific subjects. We have the ocean reader that awe have been using for our ocean unit and it is the perfect size for children to read. However, we are obsessed with their hands on activities for children! They have so many different dry-erase boards, educational learning puzzles and some games that are affordable and enhance learning. Our children love using them and there are so many different options to explore.

As you can tell, we read a lot. Homeschooling has only upped the amount of books in our home and it is all for the better because kids learn so much by reading themselves and by us as parents reading to them so we are so happy to share all of these titles with you.