Read Alouds this Week

I just discovered this link up to share what we have read aloud with our children during the past week.

We haven't done any reading aloud that isn't connected to one of the subjects we are currently studying.  For history we are using Story of the World 1.  This week we just started the first of the chapters on the Ancient Egyptians.  While there are a lot of good ideas in the teacher's manual, I figured I would get additional library books and expand on what is suggested.

We started reading both of these books this week.  From Egyptian Myths we read about Osirius, Set, and Isis.  Pharoahs and Foot Soldiers describes different jobs or occupations in Ancient Egypt.  We about the jobs associated with the Nile river. We also read a book about the Nile, but I returned it to the library today before I knew about this link up so I don't have a picture.

We've also been reading The Adventures of Penrose the Mathematical Cat.  This is part story part instruction book.  Penrose is the authors cat who likes to sit among her notes and sketches about mathematics.  The text is written from Penroses' perspective when she encounters animated numbers and math concepts.  One of the concepts I read about this week was the square root sign.  The numbers was upset about how it changes their appearance how it forms numbers that are different in appearance from the rest of them, so number 2 brought the sign to Penrose to hide and keep safe from the other numbers.  However, the other numbers missed it and wanted it back and began to fight Penrose over it.  Thus a tussle ensued, but Penrose, being the smart mathematician he is, explained how the square root sign works and how it is helpful to all of them.  Then all of a sudden his mistress pulls the papers out from under Penrose and the short story is over.

Overall, there are 20 some concepts explained in the book in similar manner. Even though we aren't currently using these concepts in math work, it is fun to hear them explained in a different way and maybe when they are encountered in work they will be slightly remembered and not as overwhelming.

Also I started reading a set of Sports themed grammar books with my seven year old son.  The two we have looked at are Touchdown Nouns and Slam Dunk Pronouns.  They feature a sports announcer reporting on a big game in the respective sport and explaining the part of speech and its proper usage in the context of the game.  Sprinkled throughout the text are small boxes which give a short explanation of the parts of speech and how they work.  There is also a brief reinforcement activity at the end of each book.  Again, I don't have pics of these as I took them back to the library earlier today.

One read aloud that I would like to add to our day is some type of fiction/chapter book, but it just seems like it is so hard to fit in.  I have all kinds of ideas, but just don't seem to find the time.


The Reading Aloud Challenge is hosted by Debra at Footprints in the Butter.