Carnival of Homeschooling #415: Living with Books Edition

Welcome to the 415th Carnival of Homeschooling!  Our theme this week is books:  homeschool books, holiday books, and more.  One of the families who originally inspired us to homeschool (and they don't even know that) said that they spent every afternoon together on the couch, eating popcorn and reading library books.  "Works for me," I thought, and off we went.

So when you're done reading the carnival and the posts...go grab a kid (and a bowl of popcorn) and a book. Or two or three.

On Homeschool Reading:

MomSCHOOL presents a Homeschool Guide to Teaching Reading. "As a homeschool mom, I think the scariest thing to teach my kindergarten children was always reading. Yet,  I love to see the light come on when they finally are able to read!"

Trivium Pursuit presents Ten Things to Do Before Age Ten. "I am sitting on the couch (a chair would never do) reading a good book, such as Men of Iron by Howard Pyle. One child sits on my right, and one child sits on my left, and one child sits on the back of the couch behind my neck, and one child sits on my lap. The fifth child has to make do. Everyone must be situated, just so, in order to see all of the pictures — which must be examined minutely before the page is turned. This is one of the ways God taught me patience."

At Here in the Bonny Glen, Melissa Wiley presents Homeschooling Books: A Wish List for Libraries.

On Holiday Reading:

Celeste presents Picture Books We Love :: My Top Ten Christmas Books for Littles, posted at Joyous Lessons.

Sage Parnassus presents Christmas Books!

At A Peaceful Day, Jeanne also presents 20 Christmas Books to Read Aloud, with an Australian twist.

Dewey's Treehouse presents a blast-from-the-past post: a review of The Church Mice at Christmas.

Harvest Moon by Hand presents Get a Christmas Tree, with a Hanukkah book that snuck in there too.

Home stuff, School stuff, Thoughtful stuff, Silly Stuff:

Petticoat Government presents Snowy Day Sewing. "Our first official lesson on using the sewing machine and how my children surprised me with their sewn creations that same day. It was a good use of a snowbound afternoon." 

Homeschoolvspublicschool presents The Perfect Christmas.  "Many years ago I was blessed by knowing a very awesome family. Thirteen children in one family and a wonderful mother and father celebrated Christmas time in a very unusual way."

Why Homeschool presents What is the purpose of a report card?  Janine shares her recent experience of a kindergarten report card.  "Does the teacher really not notice that this kid can read and that he can sound out almost every thing he reads?  I'm guessing that they gave all the students - Basic on the report card except maybe the obviously struggling students."

Homeschool and Etc presents Homeschooling an Autistic Child:  Why?  "My child is six years old and he is a public school push-out."

Time4Learning Community Blog presents the Top 25 Reasons for Homeschoolers to use Pinterest.

Afterthoughts presents Charlotte Mason and Notebooking, a review of Laurie Bestvater's book The Living Page.

A Brave Writer's Life in Brief presents Your kids want to learn and grow.  "Stay alert to your child’s struggles so that you may discover a 'block' that you hadn’t noticed in your frustration. Keep going. Don’t give up. Trust the process and your child’s natural goodwill toward you."

And finally...The Common Room, recent winner of "Best Variety" in the Homeschool Blog Awards, presents an original version of The Twelve Days of Christmas.  The six napping grandbabies are sweet, but I'm not so sure about the blood...well, go see anyway.

That's it for this week's Carnival!  Thanks to all who submitted posts and/or gave permission to use them.  Next week the host blog will be HomeGrownMommy.com.