The good book during the beginning years

I was fortunate to grow up with only good books. The astounding quantity of school books of low quality was unheard of when I was starting to learn to read. Until recently, I did not appreciate that. Having a daughter who is an emerging independent reader revealed that troubling truth to me. I had to beg her teachers to direct her towards shorter, meaningful stories. I was also troubled to find that the students do not read the same text. How, I ask, can these children learn to discuss a book, to share an opinion, to share discoveries, when they do not read the same text? I am baffled.

I was hoping that I can rely on the educators to help pick good books; alas, this is also in my court.

I have decided that I will ask my daughter to read shorter books with which she is already familiar.
The list I have in mind is the following:

• The enormous crocodile (level N) (November 2015)
• The magic finger (level N) (December 2015)
• Grace for President (N) (January 2016)
• Frindle (R) (January 2016)
• Miss Rumphius (level O) (January 2016)
• Mouse called Wolf (level O) (February 2016)
• Pippi Longstockings (level O) (March 2016)
• The mouse and the motorcycle (level O) (April-May 2016)
• Esio Trot(S) (July 2016)
• The Twits (S) (August 2016)
• Dr. Dolittle (September 2016)

In addition, once a week I will ask her to read a fable by Aesope, re-read it, narrate it and we will discuss it. The following day, I will ask her to re-read it and copy one page from the fable. Since the fables are short, I expect to teach her narration fairly easily this way. I want to prepare her for longer narrations and dictation from real literature pieces which we will begin next year.

I wish parents and educators would come together to rid the market of garbage. The magic of the reading experience is not in the quantity of pages read but in the quality of the message consumed. Look at how long the constitution is-it is quite short!

This week I also went to the Parent-Teacher conferences for both kids.

• The K-teacher told me that mirror image writing is developmental and should be resolved by the end of second grade. In first grade, in the second quarter, kids are marked off by having the d's and the b' reversed. How are these two practices consistent? 
• About the grading. Why write on second graders' spelling papers % correct, when the students do not understand the concept? Given that first the students will be introduced to fractions, why not simply go with reporting the fraction of correct answers from all. 

The themes for this month have been:

1. Evolution - We have dwindled on the subject for a while but I will at it for another month. It is very important as it can allow me to show the kids how science is done-how pieces are put together, how sacrifices are made, how fights are fought, how one person cannot do it all, how history interferes, etc. All important lessons, to be repeated and reiterated many times in the future.
• We read about Jane Goodall. We read about the ideas of Darwin-why evolution, the discoveries in the geological record, why natural selection. We also are reading a book about apes which we find very interesting. It talks about Chimps, Gorillas and Orangutans.
• I read "The Lucy Man", and am currently reading "The origins of man" and "The cartoon guide to genetics". I will narrate the information to the kids in shorter format next month. 
• We watched "Chimpanzee" and "Born to be wild", and we will see "Mountain Gorilla". So far the kids have enjoyed these types of films, some of which we have seen in the science museum theatres.
2. Ancient China
• We did not read much this month on the subject. We just watched a DVD we borrowed from the library and I recapped for them the main messages. Overall, we are golden on Ancient China. Before jumping to the Roman empire, we will revisit some old stories to link the two great empires and emphasize their similarieis and differences.
3. Free Style:
• Picture books never fail. We read "How Santa got his job" and "How Santa lost his job", "Dear Primo" and "Same, same but different". We talked about how people can be different because of where they live but how they can remain curious and respectful towards each other. We also talked about how the little things one learns to do can add up to something big, and how sometimes the biggest ideas can fail.It is good to have a plan B.
• "A long, long line" and "Thse darn squirrels" are our new wonderful finds. The former is surprising and cute. The first one is fantastic for budding engineers and is plain funny and good natured. Picture books are a real treasure that we take away from children too early!
• We continue to read The one and only Ivan. It is a hard book to read. Maybe I picked it too early but I thought it makes sense in the context of evolution-this Ivan thinks like us, feels like us, but is overpowered by us; yet, we perceive very little of him. We are half way and I intend to be done in the next week with it.
• I also read "Crenshaw". I was thinking of reading this for December. Goodness gracious, no! Such a bad book! Yes, the style works great for Ivan, but fails big time here. Sorry. The glove that fits them all is only a glove.
• I also read "The war that saved my life". I found this a very harsh book. I was uneasy throughout. It is very well written, the message is wonderful; in fact, all messages are wonderful. Definitely for a mature reader, somewhere higher middle school, high school. I am very happy I read this book even if I was left depressed.
4. Movies - Thanksgiving became Nerd Weekend
• We watched "The revenge of the nerds", "Spaceballs", and the three "Back to the future" movies this month.
• We also watched "Annie"
• I intend to have a Star Wars spectacular in the next few days, but I am waiting for the library to supply me with "New Hope" so that we can follow Machete Order. Nope, we did not like the Satr Wars movies. I have to confess that they never meant much to me, I managed to sleep through them consistently (the Matrix too). I am not surprised that my kids did not like them. 
5. Magformers:
• We got two sets which we love. One is the robot and the other is the rinabo 60-piece. Both are fabulous and allow for hours of free play. Both are challenging as none offers diractions just pictures of good perspective so that you can experiment and figure out the shape. 
• In addition, we received a free puzzle book, which we love. I used it to demonstrate how people imagined the constellations. I have never enjoyed the staring at the sky and trying to figure out where some group of stars is, but to understand how it came about is worthwhile. With the puzzle, we also learned that more than one solution to a problem is possible. This is quite a break-through, quite an advanced step for little kids, who only think of one solution and happily move on.
6. ThinkFun games:
• I am a big fan. Nowadays there are so many gadgets that are advertised as teachings kids how to program. Oh it is so easy to give in especially when understanding how invaluable the skill of programming is. However, I do not see better introduction to programming than the ThinkFun games, which teach you in a sneaky way, to follow a bunch fo rules to achieve a goal. 
• I would like to take that a step further. Science works in the following way. We are aware of partial information and we seek the rules that lead in a continuous way from one piece of information to the other. I value these games tremendously. I think they make a great gift.
• The games teach a lot of patience.