Oh, Dearest Mother, Sweetest Virgin of Altagracia, our Patroness. You are our Advocate and to you we recommend our needs. You are our Teacher and like disciples we come to learn from the example of your holy life. You are our Mother, and like children, we come to offer you all of the love of our hearts. Receive, dearest Mother, our offerings and listen attentively to our supplications. Amen.



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rm4mrfrus
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Posted: July 02 2006 at 9:28pm | IP Logged Quote rm4mrfrus

I am full of questions tonight...thank you for entertaining yet another one!

How do you do read alouds at your house? Do you have a different one for each child? I find that I am doing this and I am having a hard time getting through so many and also plan to do more reading this next year as we implement the CM approach with history and science and such!

At the moment I am reading THE NO NAME MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN to ds10, THE BLACK STALLION to dd8 and the MY FAATHER'S DRAGON series to ds6. Plus I was reading FR. JUNIPERO SERRA to ds10. It took me forever it seemed to finish these and there are so many more I want to start! I am not sure how many more read alouds I can add with living books or when to do the reading aloud. Sometimes I do it during meals or snacks and sometimes I did it when they were doing Handwriting.

I try to plan to read at least one chapter from each book each day but often it does not happen. Any tips? I tried to pick just one book for everyone but I felt that I was cheating some of then out of books....
thanks!
Hollee
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JuliaT
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Posted: July 02 2006 at 10:08pm | IP Logged Quote JuliaT

I have always had trouble with finding time for read alouds. I have tried many different ways to see what would work. What has worked for the longest time is how you do it. I read a separate book for each child at bed time. If the chapters are do-able then we do one chapter a night. If there are long chapters then I just do however many pages that I can read without falling asleep.

Other times that we have tried is during breakfast, right after lunch, right after Bible reading and in the middle of the afternoon. We still do the middle of the afternoon but that time is for picture books. Now that all my children are old enough for chapter books, we don't get to read picture books anymore. So I set up a specific time because there are so many good picture books out there.

We also read for history, science, geography, etc. I do one subject during the afternoon so that subject's book gets read that day.(I don't know whether that was clear or not.)

Julia
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rm4mrfrus
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Posted: July 02 2006 at 10:34pm | IP Logged Quote rm4mrfrus

So Julia,
Do you do one subject each day in the afternoon? Like Science on Mondays, History on Tuesdays or something like that?

I was reading all the read alouds at night before bed. I would start with the youngest and work my way up to the oldest one's books but that was killing me! I was ready to fall asleep waaay before the kids were! So now I am trying to stretch it out through the day and just read picture books to my little ones at night while the older ones have a chance to read to themselves. That way everyone gets read to each day but the little ones get several times a day to hear picture books. (and my ds6 gets chapter books and he can sit in with the picture books too!)

It feels overwhelming when I think of doing read alouds for pleasure and then adding to them more living books for the subjects, but maybe if it is only one subject a day, it may be more do-able?
God Bless,
Hollee
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lapazfarm
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Posted: July 02 2006 at 10:50pm | IP Logged Quote lapazfarm

I have always done read-alouds together, all piled in the bed at night. I don't think anyone gets shortchanged that way because I choose books that have broad appeal, like the Little house books, etc.
But that was until this year.
This year my oldest kids don't care to pile in anymore (they are usually on the phone at night) and I am down to my last two homeschoolers and their age range is so spread apart (dd4 and ds10) that read-alouds have had to change a bit.
We do picture book read-aloud in the am together (ds still likes to listen in)and I do a special chapter book read-aloud for ds during dd's naptime.
Now, this only applies to read-alouds that are for pleasure only. Subject area read-alouds (like for nature, math, science, etc) are done throughout the day as the need comes up. They are usually ds level, but dd usually listens in and catches on to a surprising amount. Dd has her own school read-aloud (currently it is Everyday Graces) in the am while ds does his math.
Dd usually gets a short bedtime story and ds reads independantly at night.

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MichelleW
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Posted: July 03 2006 at 2:34am | IP Logged Quote MichelleW

We do all our books together. We do a religious read aloud during breakfast (Bible or saint story) and after breakfast I do either a history or science read aloud. We do a for fun read aloud before bed. Occassionally, if I find a great book that we are all excited about (or if it is a particularly dreary day) I will read in the afternoon while the boys play legoes and dd cuts out paper dolls. We also listen to books on tape in the car.

On the rare occassion we don't do a book together I read to dd before bed while dh reads to the boys, or I have also tried reading one book to dd until finished and then the next book to the boys. We don't enjoy this as well. The ones not being read to always drift into the room where I'm reading anyway...

I do encourage my better readers to read to the others. This often happens on Library Day. When we get home they are so excited to share their book finds with each other that often I'll peak in on them to find them snuggled up on the couch listening--usually--to Dominick read.
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aussieannie
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Posted: July 03 2006 at 2:59am | IP Logged Quote aussieannie

lapazfarm wrote:
I have always done read-alouds together, all piled in the bed at night.


MichelleW wrote:
We do a for fun read aloud before bed.


We find it is a great time of the day to do exactly the same! I'll never forget all the nights of going off somewhere, to a different place with the children - we bubble over with excitement together. (I am reading Cay's Literature Alive book at present and it confirms all these beautiful things about reading to children)

Whenever we are reading any of Mary Fabyan Windeatt books, (she was so gifted), she had a way of ending a chapter on such a tantalizing point that you found yourself easily giving in the children's pleas for "just one more chapter!"

We also read all sorts of books, religious, classics, my interpreptation of a excellent story from a religious adult book (Purgurtory books come to mind - they love them!)

rm4mrfrus wrote:
It took me forever it seemed to finish these and there are so many more I want to start!


Our trouble too, we often have a few books on the boil, so I have to be very particular to make sure that we do finish them all off properly.

Dh at present is reading a couple of picture books to the little ones at night(15mins max), because it is not too demanding on him or them, he does a little catechism with both groups of children and I continue on with the reading to the older ones until bedtime for them. This seems to work well for us at present.

I have also in the last 2 months tried to read for a half hour at lunchtime - Watership Down - is what we are enjoying at present in that time of the day.

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Erin
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Posted: July 03 2006 at 5:48am | IP Logged Quote Erin

rm4mrfrus wrote:
How do you do read alouds at your house? Do you have a different one for each child? I find that I am doing this and I am having a hard time getting through so many and also plan to do more reading this next year as we implement the CM approach with history and science and such!


Hollee,

I have tried the book for each child approach and found it too much. What I now do with our literature read alouds is I rotate the selections. By this I mean that one time I will read a book aimed at dd12, the next at the next child and so forth. This way all five have a book selected for them and yet they will all listen in. Literature read alouds are sometimes read in the afternoon after I have a rest/break before afternoon job time at other times this doesn't work (due to my energy level) so read them before lunch.

Sometimes we also have a saint's book going. This will tend to be first thing in the morning after prayers or sometimes after seatwork before morning tea.

Our read alouds for history etc are in the period between morning tea and lunch. Sometimes when they are really enjoying this book we don't have a literature read aloud. I find having more than two books going at once doesn't work. We are better having less as we then tend to get through more books.

I am also aiming to be better at achieving more picture books daily for the littlies.

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JuliaT
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Posted: July 03 2006 at 11:14pm | IP Logged Quote JuliaT

Hollee,

     Yes, I do one subject each afternoon. For us, it simplifies the read alouds as well as gives me a focus as to what we will be reading for each subject.


Julia
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rm4mrfrus
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Posted: July 04 2006 at 9:46am | IP Logged Quote rm4mrfrus

thanks for sharing how you manage all these great books and read alouds in your family! I am going to test out the different suggestions and see which one is a fit here at our house. I think part of my problem is there are so many books I want to read and not enough time to do them all at once!
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Karen E.
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Posted: July 06 2006 at 9:32am | IP Logged Quote Karen E.

I'm late to this discussion (I'm afraid this is a chronic condition with me) but thought I'd chime in.

We do a lot of our read-alouds together -- most of them. My two oldest are 12 and 10, so I can combine a lot of things. And my youngest (almost 4) loves to sit in on most things.

We do religion read-alouds together, chapter books, history books, science-related things, and even picture books (I'm of the opinion that no one is ever too old for an excellent picture book.)

I sprinkle them throughout the day, and at meal times. I actually do less reading in the evening than I used to, because we've transitioned to more daytime read-alouds.

At bedtime, my little one still gets her one-on-one reading time, though.

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