Shining a Light on Homeschooling
Homeschooling my stepdaughter cracks me up. Plus, a reading list for kids!
Louise is homeschooling. She even has a newsletter about adventures in homeschooling. Not zoom schooling, not distance-learning, legit homeschooling with the state of New York. As in, certain days she works on a treehouse with her stepdad, forages for food and ultimately makes a quiche, has a guitar lesson, piano lesson, does a little french, a knitting class, builds a robot and does some math. Then she watches Sabrina The Teenaged Witch and eats yogurt or garlic stuffed-olives while begging for chocolate.
I am appointed the ELA teacher. Over the summer when this homeschooling decision was made, we (Tony, Louise and I) listened to this epic podcast about different homeschool techniques. One of them is called “narration” and since Louise is verbose, she chose this technique for english. What does this mean? Well, instead of giving her worksheets and making her write book reports (OK I have her do these but we call them ESSAYS thank you very much) she narrates plots of what she read, I ask her questions, and we discuss. Picture: a very chill conversation in my living room.
Anyway, I do have her write, too; I’m not a monster, and in a special newsletter you will receive the epic opinion essay she wrote why she loved the book Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH yet HATED the movie. Here’s a teaser:
"I’m about to rant. THEY CHANGED MRS. FRISBY’S NAME TO MRS. BRISBY!?!!??????!!!!! Changing the name from “Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH” to “The Secret of NIMH” is bad enough, but changing to main characters name?!?! It’s like changing Willy Wonka’s name to Billy Bonka. YOU DON’T DO THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I looked up why they did it and it turns out that there was a copyright issue with Frisbees, but why would there be a copyright issue? In the book Frisby is spelled with a y, not an ee. And since Frisbees came out before the book, WHY WOULD THERE BE A COPYRIGHT ISSUE WITH THE MOVIE AND NOT THE BOOK???”
It weirds me out how much Louise’s “voice” in this op-ed reminds me of my student/friend in my Catapult class, Diane, because one day Diane came to class and did a rant on why she hated a certain book (I will NOT NAME THE BOOK, YOU FREAKS).
This past year was my first time making “reading lists” which I did for both my Catapult generator class and Louise. I’m keeping the Catapult one top secret (for absolutely no reason but maybe another newsletter) but here is the homeschooling ELA reading list. (I included the Archie comics because that’s what she reads in her downtime.)
Mrs. Frisby and The Rats of NIMH (Anyone else read this in fifth grade???)
Black Heroes of The Wild West (Got this in a graphic memoir subscription from Lion’s Tooth in Milwaukee)
Slakes’s Limbo (she is currently reading this one, and we looked up the author who is currently 100 years old!!!! I really liked this book in fifth grade and then spent the rest of my life telling people I was ~in limbo~)
Blended by Sharon M. Draper (obsessed)
The Dragon Grammar Book (Let’s face it, I need to read this)
Bee Fearless: Dream Like A Kid by Mikaila Ulmer (okay she LOVED this book and now we drink the lemonade religiously)
The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata
An Almost American Girl by Robin Ha (freaking best graphic memoir I’ve ever read)
The Diary of Anne Frank (self-explanatory)
Chicken Soup For The Pre-teen Soul (don’t laugh)
I Am Malala (Louise already read this, but re-reading never killer anyone, more on that another day)
Anyway, did anyone else read Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH in fifth grade?? I realize this is the second time I am asking this; I just never hear anyone reference this book. What books did you read in fifth grade? Though this is my newsletter where I recommend books, I will also take recs, duh!
Oh, and for Christmas I got her this book The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman. I am basic and read about it in The New York Times. They call it an eco-fable and I have no clue what that means.
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I would like to subscribe to Louise’s rants please
i looooved the chicken soup for the soul books when i was louise's age!