Educating the Wholehearted Child Book Study

Have you ever purchased a book and then completely forgot to read it?  I have. 

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After attending the Teach Then Diligently Convention I am determined to finally finish  Educating the Wholehearted Child by Clay and Sally Clarkson. And this summer is just the time to do it.  It will be the perfect end of the school year reading.  Not only will it help me to remember why I’m homeschooling, but it will hopefully rejuvenate me as I forge ahead to the next school year. 

Do you want to join me? To make it even more interesting I thought I’d host a little informal book study on our Facebook page. Just like our Facebook page to join in.

I will also be adding my thoughts in a blog post on my personal blog for those of you that would rather participate that way.

The Plan

Every Friday morning I will create a post for the chapter read and pin it to the top of our Facebook page. Once you've finished reading come on over and let us know what stood out, things you want to put into action, something that inspired or convicted you.  The goal will be to have the first chapter read by Friday May 31st, but that chapter discussion thread will be up until the following Friday, so come when you can.

If we start next week and do a chapter a week then we will have 14 chapters completed by the end of August. The last 4 we can complete in September. (I realize some of us may start getting really busy by that time.)

The Schedule 

I know this is short notice for those of you who don’t have the book, but just jump ahead if need be.  If you can, do the free trail of Amazon Prime then you'll get it in 2 days with free shipping.  Even if you can’t follow with these dates, come back to the discussion and share your ideas.  I’d love to hear them.

Here’s dates…

• Chapter 1: May 27-31, discussion up on the 31st
  
• Chapter 2: June 1-7, discussion up on the 7th
• Chapter 3: June 8-14, discussion up on the 14th
• Chapter 4: June 15-21, discussion up on the 21st
• Chapter 5: June 22-28, discussion up on the 28th
  
• Chapter 6: June 29-July 5, discussion up on the 5th
• Chapter 7: July 6-12, discussion up on the 12th
• Chapter 8: July 13-19, discussion up on the 19th
• Chapter 9: July 20-26, discussion up on the 26th
  
• Chapter 10: July 27-Aug 2, discussion up on the 2nd
• Chapter 11: Aug 3-9, discussion up on the 9th
• Chapter 12: Aug 10-16, discussion up on the 16th
• Chapter 13: Aug 17-23, discussion up on the 23rd
• Chapter 14: Aug 25-30, discussion up on the 30th
  
• Chapter 15: Aug 31-Sept 6, discussion up on the 6th
• Chapter 16: Sept 7-13, discussion up on the 13th
• Chapter 17: Sept 14-20, discussion up on the 20th
• Chapter 18: Sept 21-27, discussion up on the 27th

Well there you go.  I hope you’ll join me. It will be great to hear what parts spoke to you. 

Please be aware that affiliate links are present.  If you purchase anything through an affiliate link, you give back a percentage to our family…thanks!

Books for New Year’s Eve

This week we are going to be sharing a few ideas and suggestions for New Year’s Eve!  We hope we can inspire some fun ways to celebrate with your kiddos.  Plus, this will give you the opportunity to prep.

To start off I thought I’d share some books about the end of the year kick off.

What are your favorite New Year’s books? Please share by leaving a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Must Reads-My Body

This week we will be revisiting our My Body unit and updating it!  On Friday we will be posting some new printables and offering a single download for the entire unit, including our previous activities!  Here are a couple more book offerings for you!

  
My Body, Your Body is a fun book that will involve your kiddo with simple commands and fun facts.  Using the book your child will explore their own bodies defining characteristics.   You’ll look in a mirror for your eye color, stick out your tongue, touch your teeth, and other fun things!  In the back of the book there are other fun ideas to continue the learning even after you’ve read the last page.  Just a fair warning though…the book is a big fave at our house and is requested frequently.  Its involved, and shouldn’t be reserved for bedtime! 

Inside Your Outside was a random find at our library. Using the stylistic rhyming of Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat takes us on a tour of our bodies and their insides.  The meter of the text makes learning facts about the body fun and entertaining for your kids, and the illustrations are Seussian and eye catching.  It is a great way to introduce your kiddos to the miracle that is their little body. 


If you have any favorites be sure and let us know!

Birthday Books

I love reading birthday books around my son’s birthday, so I had to share a few with you.  Our favorites from the group below are Birthday Zoo, Too Much Birthday and Curious George and the Birthday Surprise.

What are your favorite Birthday books? Please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Shiver me timbers!

Avast, landlubbers! Our ships be set to full mast and our heading be straight for a treasure o’ pirates activities. ARRR! Tis true, we'll be learnin' 'bout the wonderful world o’ pirating and such.

Ye find below a booty o’ pirating books. So read up me hearties, lessin' you be wanting to spend yer days swabbing the decks. Savey?

Now, answer me this maties, what be yer favorite Pirate books? Weigh in below. We be lookin’ for a slew o’ pirate readin’s. Yo-Ho!

Books with Bees

This week is all about BEEs!  We are in the process of creating some fun themed printables for you, but to get you started we found some books that relate to our theme.

What are your favorite Bee books? Please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Must Reads- Camping Theme

We can’t have a summer full of fun without a camping theme unit, now can we!?!

Here are a couple of camping books we love!  

Camping Day is a fun simple book that uses a text pattern.  The story also uses a lot of simple dialogue. Although, the text is written for a new reader it shares a lot of information about camping, such as what to bring, things you’ll see and even adds a bit of humor with camping frustrations and scares.  We love Patricia Lakin’s and Scott Nash’s alligator books.  The boy enjoys looking at the pictures and even repeating some of the dialogue with his own expressions.

Arthur Goes to Camp is the boy’s favorite so far.  When ever asked to choose a book from the library bag this is the one he picks.  This book is a much longer text than Camping Day, but my son has no problem sitting through it. A matter of fact, it was his favorite last year as well!  He was 2.5 years then.  I think he loves it for all the illustrations.   The book has 2 storylines.  One follows how Arthur does not want to go to camp.  The 2nd storyline is about the rivalry between Camp Meadowcroak and Camp Horsewater.

 

Here are some more book suggestions to really get you in the camping mood:

What are your favorite CAMPING books? Please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

4th of July Books

This week is all about Independence Day!  We are in the process of creating some fun themed printables for you, but to get you started we found some books that relate to our theme.

What are your favorite 4th of July books? Please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Summertime Books

This week we are learning all about summer!  Do you have any summer adventures planned?  I created a "What Can I Do? Can" with a big help from the Happy Home Fairy. If you haven’t checked it out, make sure you do.  Everything is already prepared for you.  All you have to do is supply the can!

Speaking of summer, we wanted to give you a heads up about our summer posting schedule. In order to take advantage of the summertime fun, we will be cutting back on our post to about 3 times a week starting next week.  We have some fun units planned, so make sure and stick around.

Now on to some book suggestions.

What are your favorite Summer books? Please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Books About Ants

This week we are learning all about Ants!  I don’t know about you, but our yard, patio and garden seem to be full of them.  I’m so excited to be able to go out and observe them a little bit closer with Lil’man as he has been very interested in watching them crawl and re-build their ant hills that he demolishes.

Below are some book suggestions to get you started.

What are your favorite Ant books, please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Baseball Books

This week we are learning all about Baseball!  I’m so excited about this unit because Lil’man is currently playing t-ball, so it fits in perfectly.  Doesn’t he look cute in his uniform?

Below are some book suggestions to get you started.

If you have any baseball book suggestions that aren’t listed, please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Rain Forest Books

This week we are learning all about the Rain Forest! We will be talking about some animals and plants that can be found there.

I don’t know about you, but I had a wonderful long weekend with friends and family.  Not only did I get to celebrate Mother’s Day, but I also got to participate in my dear friend’s wedding, enjoy some quality time with my mom who was visiting from CA, and catch up with extended family. It was a fabulous time, but as with any vacation, I’m so glad to be home now.

As you can imagine I haven’t had a chance to venture out to our local library to pick out books, so I found some cute ones for you on Amazon.

Check them out and let us know if you’d read any of them.

If you have any rain forest book suggestions that aren’t listed, please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Frog Books

This week we are learning all about FROGS! We will be talking about what frogs eat, their habitat and their life cycle.

Here are the books we’ve checked out from the library. 

If you have any frog book suggestions that aren’t listed, please leave a comment below. The more choices the better! Thanks.

Spring Fun

I’ve gotten behind in reserving my library books in advance and have been suffering the consequences.  As much as I would love to tell you some of our favorites this week, I cannot.  All the spring books have been cleaned out! Leaving our library basket empty! 

However, I’m not going to leave you empty handed. Below are some spring book suggestions.  We’ve read some of them last year and the others are ones I wouldn’t mind checking out. 

What are some of your favorite spring books? Which ones would you highly recommend to the rest of us?

Must Read- St. Patrick’s Day

This week we will be pulling out our St. Patrick’s Day printables!  We have been itching to do this unit.  So, to get us started here are some St. Patrick’s Day reads.

St. Patrick’s Day Alphabet,  is best described as a story dictionary. Each page is dedicated to one letter of the alphabet and each letter connects to a symbol of St. Patrick’s Day or Ireland. This is informational text that I probably wouldn’t have picked up at library in person, but I reserve books online. So, when I brought this book home and started looking through it, I thought it wouldn’t be read much, but that was not the case.  (I was worried that it would be a bit much for my boy to sit through, but I was so wrong.) I think my son’s favorite part about the book was the letters.  He is still into the alphabet and I am not complaining one bit.  (The age recommendation for this book is 5-8, but I just had to share it since my son seems to enjoy it so much.)

 

St. Patrick's Day Countdownis a perfect book to give a basic introduction to children 3 and under to St. Patrick’s Day. The story counts down from five shamrock patches to three leprechauns to the one pot of gold.   The simple text and cartoons will keep young readers interest.

 

 

 

Here are a few other books that might be worth reading:

 

What are you favorite St. Patrick’s Day books?

Must Read- Zoo Theme

This week we learned all about zoo animals, so I wanted to share a few of the books that we read.

Never, EVER Shout in a Zoo, written by Karma Wilson and illustrated by Doug Cushman, is a comical story about animals breaking out of the zoo and taking it over all because of a small child’s shout. The text is full of poetic devices and the watercolor-and-pencil illustrations help bring the story to life. Children will get a kick out of this cause-and effect story and may even laugh out loud.

 

Zoo Paradewas written by Harriet Ziefert and illustrated by Simms Taback. It is a great story to get kids moving. It briefly describes different ways that zoo animals move with poetic rhythm and rhyme. Preschoolers will love identifying the different animals pictured and acting out the various movements.

 

 

 

Here are the rest of the books we’re reading:

 

What are you favorite zoo books?

Must Read- Transportation

This week we will be learning all about different modes of transportation. We will be talking about boats, trains, planes and automobiles. We checked out several books from our local library. Below are a couple of our favorites, so far:
Wake Up Engines, written by Denise Dowling Mortensen and Illustrated by Melissa Iwai, tells about all different types of noisy engines outside on the city streets. While inside a little boy enjoys his day playing with toy vehicles. The book takes you back and forth from the out on the roads to back in the home. For example, the boy begins to play with his yellow school bus and then the next page talks about a yellow school bus. Other vehicles that are mentioned are: cars, street machine, garbage truck, helicopter and air plane. The bright colorful pictures and fun rhythmic text makes this an enjoyable read.

TRAINS Steaming! Pulling! Huffing! is a very informative book about “all kinds of trains, from cabooses to hoppers and commuter trains to zoo trains.” According to a variety of reviews on Amazon this book is a hit among 2-3 year olds. My boy likes it because, well let's be honest its about trains. I like it because of how the words seem to chug along like a train as you read it. To top it off the pictures offer an unique style of collage using clip art, etchings, original drawings and more.

Here are the rest of the books we’re reading:

There are so many transportation books out there, so which ones would you recommend?