May is our last full month of our homeschool year…at least that’s the plan. We love taking time off as needed throughout the year, but our girls have close public school friends in the neighborhood now. I never planned to follow the public school calendar, but we’re trying to be done about the same time as the neighborhood kids. We’re trying to find that balance between homeschool freedom and the public school calendar. Aside from our usual history and poetry books, we’ll be sharing some books about birds in our morning basket before taking a field trip to a local bird preserve nature center.
History and Read Aloud Books
Dolphin Treasure and Hundred Dresses are the final read aloud books that we’ll be doing for Bookshark’s level K. Hundred Dresses is hands-down my favorite book from this level. I’m really excited to read it again.
Swift Rivers is our final book for Bookshark’s level 3. We’ve made it through an entire year of early American History! I’ll admit that I was a bit worried that we’d tire of so many books in this time period. At this level of Bookshark, all of the read aloud and reader books tie into the history lessons. This is the first year that all of them have been based in the same time period. However now that we’re nearing the end of the year, I can say that there wasn’t a time when we tired of the books. We’ve loved some more than others, but there hasn’t been one that we wished we hadn’t read.
Related Post – Morning Basket Tips to Get Started
May History, Read Aloud, Poetry and Nursery Rhyme Books
Art, Music, and Poetry Books
We’re taking a break from our normal line-up of art, music and poetry books. We’ll finish our poetry and nursery rhyme books from Bookshark that we’ve been reading all year but we’re going to focus on some hands-on art projects. Llama Who Had No Pajama, The Arnold Lobel Book of Mother Goose, and A Child’s Introduction to Poetry have made regular appearance in our morning baskets all year.
A friend of mine has been doing art lesson videos from Chalk Pastel. We’re going to try a few this month and if it’s a hit with my girls, we’ll add it to our curriculum line-up for this coming school year. Art is one of those areas that I really want to outsource. Online videos seem like the perfect solution.
Nature Study Books
We’ll be focusing on birds for our May Morning Basket. Some of these books are fun picture books and others are more detail encyclopedia type books. We won’t make it through all of the bigger books this month, but they’ll be out for the kids to look at on their own. We’re also taking a trip to a local bird preserve nature center. They’re really good about letting us know which birds to expect when we call ahead before visiting, so we’ll use the encyclopedia books to look up the birds that we may find at the bird preserve. They also have a large library with children’s books so I’ll be taking a look to see what other gems I can find.
National Geographic Kids: Bird Guide of North America, DK Smithsonian: Everything You Need to Know About Birds, and DK Eyewitness Books: Bird – These are the encyclopedia books that we’ll be using as references this month to read about birds in our area. Perhaps the kids will discover a few new birds that they want to read more about.
National Geographic Kids: Fly with Me – This is kind of like an encyclopedia type book but it also includes stories and poems about the birds.
Birds: Explore Nature with Fun Facts and Activities – This book doesn’t focus so much on specific birds like the books above, instead it is arranged by grouping the birds by common characteristics such as where they live and what they eat.
Sounds of Nature: World of Birds – A playback feature let’s you hear the the birds featured in this book.
Why Do Birds Have Feathers? – I chose this book because the first page details how birds are classified. I’m sure some of the encyclopedia type books that this information as well. However, this one is an easier picture book geared towards younger kids.
Mama Built a Little Nest and Have You Heard the Nesting Bird? are simple yet beautifully done picture books detailing the nesting habits and songs of different birds.
I’m excited about this basket filled with beautiful and engaging books to share this month! What are you reading with your kids? What are your favorite bird books?
Related Posts
Morning Basket Tips to Get Started
April’s Morning Basket with Life Cycle Books
Leave a Reply