• 1st Place - A Year Subscription to Highlights Magazine : Congrats to Rachel for sharing how she used Stump The Teacher to get her son to dig deeper into the chapter book they were reading together. She was really impressed how it only took him a couple of nights to come up with some insightful questions.
• 2nd Place - Special Reading Kit: Thanks to Valerie who had lots of fun playing Straight or Curvy with her 4 year old son. Now he points them out everywhere they go! His special made reading kit will include many cool things he can use to make his straight and curvy letters.
• 3rd Place - $10 Abunga gift card: I hope Lori has a good time choosing a gift for her daughter on Abunga.com! She shared how she has helped her daughter learn more vocabulary words in the books they read by playing Vocabulary Riddles.

Congratulations to these three ladies and thanks to everyone else who joined in! I love reading how you guys use the lessons to help your children read at home. Although the contest is over, I would love to keep hearing from our readers (just remember to post your experiences in the comments!)

More contests to come in the near future…so stay tuned!

You still have time to join in for the chance to win some cool prizes…so don’t be shy! Winners will be contacted and posted on the site November 1st. Good Luck!

I have a second grade daughter reading at a 4-5 grade level. She devours chapter books at a rate of 1-2 per day. She is tested on these books and her comprehension is incredible. She’ll read 4 books, test on them and not confuse story lines or content. I am in awe. The problem is I want to challenge her-but many books in her level are not age appropriate. What can you suggest-titles or activities?

A child who loves to read so much that she/he devours books at record speeds is a wonderful thing indeed! Yet it can be quite challenging for parents to keep up! How far ahead should I let them read? Should I keep some books off limits? How do I keep him/her engaged and interested without exposing them to innapropriate content? The questions go on and on.

As I started to write a response with suggestions on things you can do as a parent, I remembered an article I read a while back that did a great job addressing this issue. So instead of reinventing the wheel, I strongly encourage you to check this article out because it has great ideas on choosing books for your advanced reader along with some suggested titles.

Along with Bochan’s great ideas, I’ll add my own suggestions for some series titles:

Series:

• Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time trilogy is one of my favorites!
• American Girl History Mysteries series are written by different authors and explore American histories from a fictionalized young girl’s perspective. While not necessarily humerous, they are mysteries which are a bit more complex in language than the Magic Tree House books.
• Backyard Wonders series by Nancy MacCoon is great for kids curious about animals and natural history.
• Five Ancestors books by Jeff Stone (Crane, Snake, Tiger, Monkey, and Dragon). It’s the same story set in China, told from 5 different character’s points of view. The author even has a cool site that shares history, activities, and news that relate to the books.
• The Misadventures of Inspector Moustachio by Wayne Madsen. I havent’ read this one yet , but it is highly recommended for avid readers. Here’s B&N’s synopsis: A riveting tale that is full of adventure, suspense and humor. This book will hold particular appeal to children ages 8 to 12 who want something more engaging and compelling than what typical chapter books offer their age group. Already being endorsed by educational professionals, The Case Of Stolen Time will become a classic favorite of children and educators alike!

In addition to choosing great titles, you may also want to consider doing some pre, during, and post reading activities with your child to extend their experiences with the books they love. I’m currently working on more lengthy articles to share specific ideas with you, so stayed tuned!

So they were having a book giveaway on their site this month…and I won! I never win anything, so I’m really excited about winning! Plus I’ll be adding this great bilingual book to Chick Pea’s library:

If I Could is a lovely and imaginative book written by Nancy Sweetland. With full text in both English and Spanish, it follows the imagination of a little boy who wonders what it would be like to do things, if only he could.

They’re going to have another giveaway next month, so give them a visit, join the giveaway, and see if you win! Muchas gracias Ladies!

Speaking of winning…don’t forget to join our own October Lesson Idea Contest for your chance to win some cool prizes!

This post originally appeared at Reading Coach Online. Thanks for visiting and supporting our site!

Didn’t win? No worries…our next contest starts now!

October Lesson Idea Contest: I hope you’ve had some time to try out some of our Lesson Ideas for this month’s contest. If not, you’ll still have the month of October to explore and try them out -so join in anytime. All you have to do to enter our October Contest is to do one or both of the following:

1. Leave a comment on one of our Lesson Ideas to let us know how it worked out for you. You can even  add any changes you made to make it work for your family.
2. If you have a blog, just write a post about one of our Lesson Ideas to share how it worked for your family. You can even include pictures and videos of the lessons. Don’t forget to link to us in your post (that’s how we’ll know about your post - it’ll act as your entry to the contest)!

That’s it! That’s all you have to do to enter the contest. Oh wait…there is one more thing. Your comment and/or blog post will have to be interesting enough to catch my eye because this is a contest. And to make it more fun, the winners will not be chosen randomly. That’s right I said winners because there will be a total of three winners this month! So really try to earn some creative points with your comments and posts!

You’ll have until midnight on October 31st to enter to win one of the following fabulous prizes:

First Place: A full year subscription for your child to Highlights Magazine. I love this magazine! We will order your subscription for the grade/age level of your choice.

Second Place: A special order Reading Kit tailored for your child made by yours truly.

Third Place: An awesome $10 gift card for Abunga.com

Have fun and good luck!

I remember one year in Florida there was a lot of buzz about a certain book that was being banned in all schools county by county. Guess what happened? EVERYONE wanted to read it…and just about everyone did. It’s still one of my favorites! It’s funny how banning books has that effect, no?

So go check out what it’s all about and also to see what titles are creating buzz this year. Enjoy your freedom!

If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a program that works to donate books to kids who need them. From Cheerios:

In celebration of the 6th anniversary of the Spoonfuls of Stories® program, First Book and Cheerios® are distributing 100,000 children’s books by John Lithgow to programs serving children in need across the country.

The book titles for this year haven’t been released yet, but they will include 5 award winning books inside each Cheerios box. They will even be printed in English AND Spanish - can’t beat that! Although I prefer the honey nut variety, I’ll definitely be picking up a couple of boxes this fall!

Here’s a preview:

You can see more examples here.

Katy has ready made tins for many popular books and she also hosts contests for her readers with different themes. Be sure to check this out!

We sat down and covered the basics:

• Homeschool method of choice - Classical, Unschooling, Waldorf,  Montessori…so many to choose from! (BTW, this is a great place to start because this will lead you to the kind of teaching/learning style, curriculum, and environment that will fit your family)
• Co-op or no co-op? What are the local options?
• Curriculum and materials - What to buy? What can I make? There’s so much out there!
• Reading instruction - Quick intro to Phonics vs Whole Language and the latest research
• Daily structure - or lack there of if unschooling
• Daughter’s learning style
• Mom’s teaching style
• Starting points and assessments
• Planning
• And other such things that come up when talking about homeschooling

Anyway, she had some great questions about planning for subjects and on how to be sure that she would be teaching the things that her daughter needed to know for her age. This is a really common concern and there’s a super easy and free resource that you can use to help guide you in the general direction. Your state standards.

I know, I know…many families homeschool to get away from the state school system. Yet the state standards can be a really helpful guide for parents because it shows you what kids should (developmentally) be learning for each subject by grade level. This doesn’t mean that you have to teach those things or that you can’t go above and beyond those things - but it can really help to give you a big picture of where you want to go for the year and might even give you some ideas for what you want to teach.

So if you have these same concerns as a new homeschooler or if you’re a veteran looking for ideas on what to teach for a certain grade level or subject, then you can definitely get some ideas from this free resource. Check out your state’s standards online by going to your state’s department of education website.

What are some things that you all have done to help you organize or decide what you teach? We’d love to hear from you!

Reading Kits can include:

• highlighters and highlighting tape
• sticky notes
• bookmarks
• color markers
• pens and pencils
• index cards

Here are some quick ideas on how to use the reading kits:

• Color Coded Highlighters can be used  by your child to highlight  words they don’t know or interesting passages that he/she likes. You can use a different color to go through and highlight vocab words you want your child to focus on, interesting characters, or sections of a chapter book that you’d like to discuss later. You can also do this with colored sticky notes if you don’t want to write in the book.
• Sticky Notes can be used by your child to write questions or thoughts about what they are reading. These can be used for discussion later. You can use them to write down your own questions or pointers that you want your child to think about while they read certain sections of a book - just write them ahead of time and place them on the pages throughout the book.
• Index Cards have lots of uses! Have your child write short sentences, phrases, or even pictures on the cards to summarize a paragraph or page. You can assign sections of a book for your child to write retells or reactions to something in the story (an event, character analyzation, a prediction, etc.).
• Time Lines can also be made using index cards and sticky notes. Have your child make a time line of the events in a story/book (either with words or pictures or both). This really helps them with the comprehension skill of sequencing!

Reading Kits are really easy to put together, yet they can really make a difference in the way your child understands a book or text. Plus, they love to have their little “tools” while reading their book!