This Monday, we are going to a book club hosted at a local church. We participated in the book club last year and had a great time. My friend and her sixth grade daughter are hosting the club this time, and the theme is circus books. Our local library is so helpful to homeschoolers, and we have gotten to know the librarians quite well, so we went and asked them to pull everything they had about the circus.
My eight year old is reading a Nancy Drew mystery, "The Ring Master's Secret".
She has just started the book today, and I will have her make a blog entry about it when she finishes. It seems that a Nancy Drew obsession may be on the horizon, because Anna just finished another Nancy Drew mystery last week.
The other books that we decided to focus on are "Cam Jansen: The Mystery of the Circus Clown" (a book which we just finished and both my five and eight year old enjoyed)
and "Circus Caps for Sale" (geared more toward my five year old).
As I was reading this last book a lot of ideas starting popping into my head for math extensions and all kinds of fun things. I did a little research on the book and what a great resource at the Slobodkina foundation. Here there are printable worksheets for counting, matching, doing mazes, and lots of other fun things! This kind of find really excites me. For instance, did you know that Esphyr Slobodkina, the author of "Circus Caps for Sale" pioneered the technique of collage illustration in American storybooks?
Perhaps Monday I will print some of the math sheets for my son and let him paint one of the printables, and my daughter can paint as well as discuss collage illustration with me. I love the new things I can learn through homeschooling. I am getting an education at the same time I am education my children. This is such a gift!
There is also a site for Cam Jansen lovers that I may choose to investigate at a later date. I get a lot of good ideas swirling in my head, but know myself well enough to just choose one idea at a time to pursue. If I choose them all I get confused and NOTHING gets done!
I'll let you know how book club goes!