The Tale of Despereaux Resources

"The Tale of Despereaux" by Kate DiCamillo is now our family's favorite book of all time. We had so much fun reading it the first time, I'm collecting resources to do a "Tale of Despereaux" unit study. Geekling's vocabulary soared as we read the book, and he was so interested in the story that he chose read aloud time over screen time. Here are a few things I wish we had done before and during reading and links and ideas to that I'll be doing when we reread, use it to create your own Tale of Despereaux activities...

Homeschooling Reluctant Readers: The Graphic Novel

Finding great books that will capture a reluctant reader's interest without overwhelming them can be difficult. I spend a lot of time searching for books that will make Geekling want to read without being asked. Here are some of the best books and reading lists for 6 to 10 year old boys that I've found.

Graphic novels (that's basically a thick comic book for the less geeky parents out there) are a great way to get your child into reading without making it feel like a chore. For longer books like The Stonekeeper, we start out reading together, and I conveniently need to do something else when we get to an exciting part of the book. List of great books for reluctant readers after the break.

Writing Without Tears

Geekling has been improving his writing skills this week while playing with other homeschoolers on a Minecraft server while I was sick. I'm amazed at how quickly he's learned to improve his written communication, it's definitely been more effective than anything I've imparted through repeated attempts. The fact is he hates writing, and this has inspired me to stop trying to use "traditional" methods, and just focus on providing opportunities for him to use writing more naturally when it makes sense in his every day life.

We've had a lot of fun chatting in Skype and writing Monty Python style insults to improve spelling and vocabulary. My favorite thus far this week was "You grass eating mammal!" He came up with this when encountering a sheep in Minecraft. It may be my favorite new "insult."

I'm still trying to come up with ways for him to enjoy writing with a pencil and paper, but at the moment I think I'll enjoy watching him progress with composing and communicating his thoughts via keyboard. Now that he's getting into more Graphic Novels, I'm hoping we can learn to draw comics in order to exercise his fine motor skills and improve his handwriting.

I'm working on getting back to blogging after a break to figure out exactly what works for us with homeschooling. Right now we're working on learning about life cycles (mosquitoes), weather, the human body, archaeology, and introducing Ancient Egypt and how farming changed the world.

Geekling has developed a serious interest in Minecraft and playing on a server with other kids has done wonders for his sentence writing abilities through chat. We're also just starting to learn about mining and geology which has great tie ins for American Geography and history.

I'll be using a lot of free adult educational resources to brush up on the necessary skills to be able to teach Geekling well and I will post links to all of the great resources available.