101 Chapter Books to Read Aloud to My Kids

It's no secret that I love to read.  When we visited a furniture store last weekend, the girls pointed out every (fake) stack of books that was displayed, yelling "Mommy, look at the books - your favorite!".  I've been reading chapter books aloud to the twins since they were 2.5, and it's still something special we enjoy every day.  I had assumed that when the girls learned to read they would be eagerly seeking out books and enjoy reading on their own, but that didn't quite happen.  They're technically amazing readers for their age, but don't have the passion for independent reading quite yet (I need to remember they are only 4.5 years old).  So for now I'm just reading lots and lots of book aloud to them (and starting to include my 2.5 year old boy too, although he doesn't quite have the attention span yet and wanders away).   I love being able to share classics from my own childhood with my children, as well as discover some "new-to-me" books as well.  Amazon recently released its updated list of 100 Books to Read in a Lifetime.  Since surfing Amazon is my "hobby" (yes, really!), I was inspired to come up with a list of 101 read aloud chapter books for kids (33 that we've already read, and the rest on my "wish list").  Here goes...

Combinatorics in Kindergarten {What Will Little Bear Wear?}

It's been a bit chilly here lately so the girls and I have been reading plenty of stories about cold and snow.  One of the stories in circulation this week is "What Will Little Bear Wear?" from the book Little Bear by Elsa Holmelund Minarik.  I threw together a fun little math activity related to the book. (It would also go great with the book Jesse Bear What Will You Wear? from Before Five in a Row)...

Learning about Africa in Homeschool Kindergarten

This week our theme was "Africa".  I'd like to do some activities for Black History Month later in February, so I thought a good start would be to learn a little big about Africa first.  This involved a lot of crafts (like the African mask art pictured above) which the girls really enjoyed.  Here's more of what we did..