Carol & Cory's CA Creations

Summer Reading

Here are some of the books I have enjoyed reading with my kids this summer. My daughter will be going into second grade and my son will be going into Kindergarten. My kids are now getting close to the age of my students and it really helps me connect with both populations' reading interests. They signed up for the OC Library's Summer Reading program, "Paws for Reading", and they get to color in a bone for every 20 minutes they read. It really helps our family stay on track with our daily reading goals. 

As a family, we have enjoyed listening to books on cd from the Library like the Judy Moody and Stink series, especially on our recent road trip to Zion. We also bought books on my I-pad Nook for Kids app and purchased the audio for the Harry Potter series at www.pottermore.com. Listening on the i-pad has made it really easy to keep track of the minutes, as it tells you the time for each chapter. I couldn't find any of the chapter books on the Nook where it reads the text for you. We only found a couple of Learn to Read myth books that my daughter enjoyed like The Story of Pandora's Box.

We started reading the Rainbow Magic Fairy series this spring. Of course, every girl wants to find her name, and; it just so happens that we were in luck. My daughter Addison found Addison the April Fool's Day Fairy around her birthday. They made great gifts for friends too. If you can't find the name you are looking for, try matching it with a special occasion. We are currently reading, Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy. There are over 50 of these books in the series. You can find them on this site: 

http://www.rainbowmagiconline.com. They have little skinny ones and some go up to the 3rd grade reading level. However, they all follow the same basic storyline of two human girls helping the fairies to restore order after Jack Frost and his goblins create a bunch of problems. It got a little repetitive and predictable for me, but my daughter didn't seem to mind and she felt good about being able to read them herself. 

I then looked for something a little deeper and decided to give the Harry Potter series a go. I let them watch the first movie and they loved it. I told them if they wanted to watch the other ones, they had to read the book(or at least listen to them with me) first. I look forward to listening with them each night. In fact, Brandon asked us to teach him how to play chess after learning about the first story. Addison wanted to know how Hermione became so smart. She wants to be just like her. (: Maybe we will get to visit Hogwarts in Orlando, Florida someday.

As for Brandon, he has really locked into two books this summer and luckily they are a series. He loves Pete the Cat and Stick Dog. Pete the Cat has a wonderful outlook on life: always keep your head up, keep trying, and don't get ruffled by minor things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things. A third grade student of mine from Holland introduced me to the humor of Stick Dog. Stick Dog has a dog gang. Their names are Poo Poo(not after the bathroom), Karen, Mutt, and Stripes. The dogs ultimate goal is to obtain food(hamburgers, hot dogs, and pizza). We read book two and in it Stick Dog competes with a group of raccoons led by Phyllis to win the prize. Brandon and I really enjoyed reading the animals' plans. We are currently reading the third one, which just came out on July 8th. Here are the sites:http://www.petethecat.com and http://www.stickdogbooks.com.

What children books have you been reading with your students or kids this summer?

-Cory

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