Ten Books My 4 and 6 Year Old Love

It’s been a while since I talked about the books we’re reading.  We have lots of books around, plus we check out lots of books from our local library (50+ at a time!). I thought I’d highlight ten books that have been on the repeated request list. While we’ve read other books in the past couple of weeks, these are the books that I have read again and again (and again and again!!).

In no particular order:

Ruby the Copycat–We have some great discussions from this book. ED copies DD a lot. It drives DD bananas!! ED wants to color her pictures exactly the same as DD. She wants to make the same crafts. She wants to eat the same dessert.  This is a timely book, but also really cute. It really celebrates the importance of being yourself.  At the age of 4 1/2 or so DD also adored this book and we went through a stretch where we read it a couple times a day to DD as well.

Chocolatina–A girl eats so much chocolate she turns into a chocolate bar. Wonderful — and I don’t mind reading it over and over!

Green Eggs and Ham–Much requested lately–morning and night!

The Cat Came Back–This is a book based on a song I remember singing (waaaay back!). We kind of sing the chorus together.  ED adores this book. I mean–completely and utterly loves it! I’ve renewed it umteen times! It’s quirky (about a man who wants to get rid of a cat), but she roars in laughter each time!

Here are the next four books. Again, in no particular order:

The Gardener: A book set in the depression era about a girl who goes to live with her uncle.  ED loves this book.

I Have a Sister, My Sister is Deaf: To be honest I was surprised how much ED loved this book. It tells the simple story about what it’s like for a older sister to have a deaf younger sister.  ED has asked a lot of great questions both about being deaf (I wear hearing aids in both ears, but hear very well with them. It’s a consequence of ear infections as a child/adult.) and about being blind (which the book does not address, but I suppose has gotten ED to think.  I got the book to go along with our 5 Senses unit a couple weeks ago (Here’s a post about sound bingo we played.  Also see the taste post or smell post.)

Big Bad Bruce: We love all of Bill Peet’s books. They are longer children’s books, but keep both ED and DD engaged.  Actually DD is more likely to request these books than ED, but ED gets pulled in right away.

The Salamander Room: This is a cute story about a boy who transforms his room to make the perfect habitat for a salamander he found.

The last two are longer chapter books.

Here’s a Penny: DD loved this book! I read this aloud over the course of the past week or so to both the girls at snack/meal time.  DD is anxious to check the next one out of the library!  It’s about a young boy who has lots of adventures. It’s sweet and innocent about a boy who was adopted.

Avalon: Web of Magic–I got this book and a few others in the series on a whim at our local used book store.  DD absolutely loved it. She read it herself and then demanded that I read it too. It’s a fantasy book about some girls who are drawn to a place deep in the woods. The girls have to band together to protect magical animals that come through a portal in the woods.  DD loves animals and I was so happy to have a book she was so drawn to.

Meanwhile, LD is on his second Rick Riordan series. He’s currently in the middle of The Son of Neptune.

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Changing the subject completely, yesterday I posted about our science experiments with mealworms. Yesterday we checked our mealworms for the first time in a number of days.  We were surprised to see a number of them had started to undergo changes. We could see the beginnings of legs forming on a number of them. Mealworms turn into darkling beetles.

All summer we closely watch the frog life cycle — from eggs, to tadpoles, to froglets.  These changes took us a bit by surprise. I had read that some mealworms sold in pet stores are treated so they don’t transform into darkling beetles. Obviously these guys weren’t treated! That just added to the wonder of the science experiment!  The kids all dragged out their magnifying glasses and spent another good hour examining them.

One last thing… I had intended to post our plans for DD and LD this week, but haven’t gotten to that yet. We added the majority of our subjects back in to our homeschool day now so that’s been fun, but kept me busy with the daily prep.