Welcome to Three Book Thursday! Three Book Thursday is a feature that’s all about sharing the joy of books with children. To read more posts like this one, go here!
My children and I are in the middle of the best unit study for young kids ever. We’re studying frontiersmen (and frontierswomen? frontierspeople?). Seriously, what kids do not want to pretend they’re churning butter in the mud pit under the swing set? Or tying meat onto their horse after hunting (but the horse is actually a mop and the meat is actually your sister’s pink cupcake purse…)? It has been an amusing for me to watch them play after doing this study, at any rate!
(Side note on our history theory: A lot of people say “It’s important to study history chronologically,” in a more classical method like Susan Wise Bauer‘s books follow. Another group says “read what your kids are interested in” or “start with U.S. history because it has the best literature for young children to go with it!” Rea Berg is a big proponent for this theory. Since I’m crazy about reading, I’m a big fan of the route with lots of stories and literature. And we also pick up The Story of the World and read that, too. In other words, we like it all! But mostly we stick with a literature based approach to history, so sometimes our just-for-fun books will also be our school books, but please know that these books stand alone as great books to read with your kids and it’s important to pick the educational method that fits you and your children best.)
Without further ado, here are our favorite books this week!
Daniel Boone’s Great Escape by Michael P. Spradlin is currently Isaac’s very favorite book. It’s just a snippet of what Daniel Boone did in his life, but it works well for young children because it’s an exciting adventure through and through. In the later part of Daniel Boone’s life, after he’s founded Boonsborough and even become a grandfather, he was captured by Shawnee warriors. His escape is pretty amazing! This book definitely falls in the Heroes For Boys category that I’m always seeking out on our library trips.
We’ve also enjoyed Who Was Here: Discovering Wild Animal Tracks as we talk about tracking animals. One page has a clue about the animal and a picture of its print, and the next page has the answer. It’s a good combination of learning about 
the animals’ tracks, their habitats, and some interesting facts about them. We read Tracks in the Snow as another track-themed book, but it was definitely more for the 2-3-year-old age group than for a 4-year-old or 6-year-old. It was very cute and Violet loved it, though the concept of snow was totally lost on her.
I’m thankful we get to investigate tracks for fun instead of for food, but I also think it’s good for our modern-day children to know how much hard work frontiersmen went through. So of course, I chose Little House in the Big Woods as our read aloud for this month. Last time we read it, Ella was only four. She 
doesn’t remember much of it, and it’s all new to Isaac this time around. Does homeschooling mean I get to read the Little House books to my children every two years? Sold! =) I feel like I need to reread these books for my own perspective on how much easier my life is than Caroline Wilder’s was. And if you want to put Christmas gifts into perspective for your kids, read them just the Christmas chapters from Little House in the Big Woods or Little House on the Prairie. Wow. Besides the perspective, these are simply some of the best books ever. And the great part is I hardly remember On The Shores of Silver Lake! Can’t wait ’til we get to that one.
So that’s what’s in our reading basket this week. What have you and your kids been reading?
It’s thirty day period of taking everything out of your diet but fresh meat, vegetables, fruits, eggs, and some nuts. That is all you eat for 30 days. It’s along the the lines of paleo, but with a different theory and intention. The theory isn’t that we should eat like this because our ancestors ate like this, or even that we should always eat like this. The theory is that what we put in our body effects us and wouldn’t it be a good idea to figure out how the stuff we eat makes us feel? Maybe you have zero problems with dairy, or maybe you’ll find you actually have an intolerance. Maybe you’ve been eating way more processed grains than you realized, or that your diet is a lot further from “natural” than you would have thought. (Maybe I’m speaking from experience…). Oh, and it’s very likely you’re addicted to sugar. And it’s also likely that your body is completely hooked on sugars as an energy source instead of using fats .That’s the number one reason why I did this program, in fact. I reached for some form of sugar, be it unhealthy sweets or “wholesome” granola bars, pretty much any time I was hungry.
developed characters and plot, you get sucked in heart and mind. You feel stretched and grown when you’re done. The fact that goes along with all that beauty: reading a classic takes longer than reading most current fiction! Even for the fastest readers, or for those who feel right at home in 19th century English lit, 
is wonderful. Why is it so slow, then? Well, I feel compelled by overwhelming curiosity to stop and research the real people and situations included in this novel about female photographers fighting against all odds to be the first photojournalists on the scene at the liberation of Paris in 1945. Meg Waite Clayton has done an incredible job of mixing true history and new characters. This book is as good as a history lesson, if not better. I haven’t reached the end of it yet, so I can’t speak for how much I love the whole plot, but the setting alone has me won over as a fan. If you liked Code Name Verity, you’ll probably like this one as well (and so far it’s not as brutal in war crime content). (Also, speaking of Meg Waite Clayton, I am a big fan of her book 
down a hill that only leads to pancakes for dinner two times in one week, and a sugar addiction as deep and as wide as the river of maple syrup my son leaves on his plate after said pancake dinners. After trying all summer to right the eating habits by gradual, subtle changes, I declared myself beat. I needed a plan. The Whole30 made sense because it’s only for 30 days and it doesn’t claim that all the good stuff in life is bad for you, necessarily, but that it’s a good idea to cut some things out and see for yourself what makes you feel well and what doesn’t. I’ll write a whole review of the experience later, but right now what you need to know is that I’ve been poring over this book more than any other book this month.
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