Parent Of The Year - 2011

It might take a second....and it's really not worthy of this category.

But the winner is...

And there may be some *nepotism* involved...

It's my SIL - who recently told us that she won't let her kids take books out of the library....because they get lost!

Contrast that with my family's prolific library usage. See - Raising Bibliophiles.

Government Lie Of The Day - Illliteracy

Check out this chart:

Only a complete Moron would believe this self-serving Big Government lie - that by 1979 only .6% of Americans were illiterate.

And here's the *summary*:

The higher levels of education attained by young adults in the most recent decades suggest that the overall education level of the population will continue to rise slowly into at least the early 21st century.

Meanwhile, if you took away the graphics and order-by-number menu at McDonalds....business - or at least the speed of the line - there would grind to a halt.

Socialized Illiterates?

Consider this salient into the daycare/preschool *socialization justification*:

In 1950 the average vocabulary of a child entering first grade was 4000 words. By 1990 this figure had dropped to 1000 words. Why? Because children are not read to and do not have very much quality interaction with their parents. Plus they do not pick up new words at play with their peers. And it is hard for two tired, working parents or a single parent to do much with their children at the end of the day. Many kids are simply placed in front of the TV while mom and/or dad get supper ready.

I don't know about y'all...

But I'd most certainly take a quadrupled vocabulary and keep my toddlers mainly at home if the daycare application came with such an explicit disclaimer!

In fact that's what we did here at the Nut household.

Did y'all see the staggering book list I posted of my 6 year-old son on HomeschoolDad?

Too Much Homework...

Yes, this is indeed my nightstand at the moment:

Awaken The Giant Within

Swim with the Sharks Without Being Eaten Alive: Outsell, Outmanage, Outmotivate, and Outnegotiate Your Competition (Collins Business Essentials)

The Official SAT Study Guide, 2nd edition

Relax into Stretch : Instant Flexibility Through Mastering Muscle Tension

Life Application Study Bible NIV

The Ultimate Sales Letter: Attract New Customers. Boost your Sales.

Home Schooling, the Right Choice: An Academic, Historical, Practical, and Legal Perspective

Tribal Leadership: Leveraging Natural Groups to Build a Thriving Organization

There's just too little time to read these days - so they are piling up. Plus I keep coming across new, good ones.

So far I've read 23 books in 2011.

Last year I read approximately 27 books. See my - book list.

In this arena my bibliophile son leaves me in the dust. Just wait until I show you what he's read - just since July!

Of course he doesn't really have to do anything other than make his bed. And a good portion of his reading takes place while I'm at the steering wheel, stuck in New York traffic. So it's not exactly a fair contest.

Women - Grosser Than We Thought

The scat-obsessed Ukrainian Fop sent me a link on toilet reading.

I was shocked to learn:

...and 41% of the women confessed to being regular toilet readers.

Besides that one lady who worked in my wife's office in Philly - who would blatantly fetch a newspaper(the sports section only!), tuck it under her arm, and saunter her way over to the comfort station....I had heretofore thought the practice was rare among the other gender.

It's entrapment!

Go Watch Color TV, You Brat!

Without being any more descriptive....let's just say *someone* my wife and I know recently complained that they, "Can't f*ckin' stand it" when their toddler grabs a book and asks them to read a story.

Bad parent, right?

Well, incredibly this one is/was also an elementary school teacher for several years. So just imagine if she hates reading to HER OWN CHILD,....imagine how much she cares about the education of her students!

Also, ironically this *somebody* has more than once told me that they do NOT APPROVE of me homeschooling my kids. She's said, "I'm a big believer in the school system."

You know I usually enjoy firing ripostes at Morons like this...

However this one is so bad she merits only avoidance.

The Prince Fails An Important Test

So I'm, most reluctantly, at the doctor's office the other day. The kids NEED physicals in order to go to camp.

But I was disheartened to learn that my son is blind as a bat.

He failed the eye chart from 20 feet miserably. I mean he got stuck on the second or third row for crying out loud. I know that I can't see worth crap and even I could clearly make out most of the chart without my glasses (which I stubbornly only wear when driving). So the poor kid must be really blind.

The doctor asked if he was having trouble in school. Haha, he most certainly is not! He doesn't go to *school*. What do you mean?

"He might have(!) been having problems seeing the blackboard," she said.

Oh, I guess that makes sense as a normal indicator anyway.  I myself can't read the menus at fast food restaurants until I'm right up at the front of the counter.

Now I think I have to take him to an eye doctor to *rule out astigmatism* or something.

And my wife and I can't help but think all his reading, often in poor light, might be responsible for this development - even if it isn't. The lighting in our house, no matter how many lamps we add, just isn't that good. Really those tall halogen lights are the only ones that really work but I'm too afraid to put them in the kids rooms - given how big of a fire hazard they are.

Of course in the larger scheme of things *glasses* hardly constitute a health disaster but still...

See also - The Prince Can't.

Feeding A Book Monster

Today flew by and I didn't really *assign* my son much to do other than a half page of Kumon's Grade 6 Word Problems that we had to redo from yesterday.

The 6.58 year old Prince got up this morning and spent 1.5 hours on BrainPop.com; we played a game of chess; and the next thing you know, after a Cub Scout party from 4pm-7pm, the day was over.

I guess I was ignoring him while I went about my boring daily business: managing the trash, making beds, serving meals, doing dishes, sifting through piles of email, etc. Anyways he read that book today - 39 Clues, Book 10: Into the Gauntlet.

Big deal, right?

Well it has 327 pages!

Furthermore, he had to finish up Book 9 first - which had 30-40 pages remaining early this morning.

The reading has gotten a little out of control lately. I walk through the house tripping over library books all day long. I pick them up and ask him if he's read them....invariably it's "Yes". Then I take them downstairs and set them next to his computer so he can add them to his *Books Read* Google Doc which I copy-and-paste into the paperwork I submit to the school district.

I just hope I can get him to graduate from prolific reader to prolific writer...

See also:

Homeschooling - Enabling Concentrated Study

Prince C-Nut - Book Devourer

'Old Coots' + Dumb Kids

From Sir Ken Robinson's The Element:

The other institution is the Grace Living Center, a retirement home.

Over the next few months, the district established a preschool and kindergarten classroom in the heart of Grace Living Center. Surrounded by clear glass walls (with a gap at the top to allow the sounds of the children to filter out), the classroom sits in the foyer of the main building. The children and their teachers go to school there every day as though it were any other classroom. Because it's in the foyer, the residents walk past it at least three times per day to get to their meals.

As soon as the class opened, many of the residents stopped to look through the glass walls at what was going on. The teachers told them that the children were learning to read. One by one, several residents asked if they could help. The teachers were glad to have the assistance, and they quickly set up a program called Book Buddies. The program pairs a member of the retirement home with one of the children. The adults listen to the children read, and they read to them.

The program has had some remarkable results. One is that the majority of the children at the Grace Living Center are outperforming other children in the district on the state's standardized reading tests. More than 70 percent are leaving the program at age five reading at third-grade level or higher. But the children are learning much more than how to read. As they sit with their book buddies, the kids have rich conversations with the adults about a wide variety of subjects, and especially about the elders' memories of their childhoods growing up in Oklahoma. The children ask about how big iPods were when the adults were growing up, and the adults explain that their lives really weren't like the lives that kids have now. This leads to stories about how they lived and played seventy, eighty, or even ninety years ago. The children are getting a wonderfully textured social history of their hometowns from people who have seen the town evolve over the decades. Parents are so pleased with this extracurricular benefit that a lottery is now required because the demand for the sixty available desks is so strong.

Something else has been going on at the Grace Living Center, though: medication levels there are plummeting. Many of the residents on the program have stopped or cut back on their drugs.

Why is this happening? Because the adult participants in the program have come back to life. Instead of whiling away their days waiting on the inevitable, they have a reason to get up in the morning and a renewed excitement about what the day might bring. Because they are reconnecting with their creative energies, they are literally living longer.

There's something else the children learn. Every now and then, the teachers have to tell them that one of their book buddies won't be coming any more; that this person has passed. So the children come to appreciate at a tender age that life has its rhythms and cycles, and that even the people they become close to are part of that cycle.

In a way, the Grace Living Center has restored an ancient, traditional relationship between the generations...

Wow, right?

Now I don't know that 'old coots', e.g. grandparents, reading to youngsters and spending time with them constitutes the restoration of an ANCIENT TRADITION. After all, it's only been a few decades since the welfare state and entitlements severed the generations.

And imagine that - one-on-one reading promotes literacy! Who knew?

The reduction in drug demand/supply however was a little more astonishing. But seriously, today kids need drugs (ADHD, etc.) in order to suffer through government school....so it shouldn't be a shock that 'old coots' and 'old bags' sheltered from life (family, familiar places, youngsters, etc.) need medication to make it through their dreary days as well.

I enjoyed reading The Element because it was full of various interesting success stories: Paul McCartney, Julia Child, Ridley Scott, Vidal Sassoon, etc.

Although overall the book was a failure, tantamount to a long fly ball caught in centerfield.

Robinson is, at his core, a government education guy. While he nails a ton of arguments against today's school systems....he botches the prescription big time. In fact he doesn't prescribe much at all other than the *idea* that kids need to devote time and energy to their personal passions. But how are they possibly going to do that when burdened with 8 hours of school (including commute) and a few more hours of homework (THE proof that time in school is wasted!)?

He asserts that *the arts* should be promoted back to parity with math and verbal subjects. SNOOZzzzze.

Let me put it this way - in a 200+ page book on *education*....Ken Robinson didn't mention or even indirectly allude to *parents* or *family* A SINGLE TIME. Like I said, he's an institutional guy all the way. He actually makes his living advising governments on matters of education so don't expect him to stand up anytime soon and start singing the virtues of NON-GOVERNMENT schooling.

But a book doesn't have to be perfect, nor an author pure to be worth your time. If your library has it...

And give credit where it's due, his video was absolutely terrific.

Robinson DID NOT homeschool his kids. And this may sound chauvinistic but I just don't know that ANYONE, certainly I couldn't, can appreciate the full bounty of a parentally-directed education unless they themselves have walked down that path, and nurtured the minds of their own little ones. To this sub-population, homeschooling will forever remain at best a mere theory, a hypothesis even - and at worst it's a personal attack on their low, school-certified self-esteem.

Make Mistakes On The First....Ignore The Second One...

My 4.90 year old Princess is just about literate. She's somewhere between *sight words* and *sounding out* the unfamiliar. How long it will take to bridge that gap is anyone's guess - after all, the span between the first pot-pee and fully potty-trained was wide and TORTUROUS.

But she can read enough now to begin what I call the *content subjects*.

One of the best little websites I came across, and long-time readers will remember from 1.5 years ago, is that US Map Quiz. Click the link and try it for yourselves. You have to drag the name of the state onto the correct region of the map.

See also - Web Homeschooling.

So the Princess will be starting that soon.

Also, dovetailing nicely with our continuing *money studies*....I will buy her that $10 US State Quarter Map that her brother had a great time doing.

I also do have a United States placemat which we've had forever and will be under her food until she gets the States down.  And it should help that she's already been up and down the East Coast a couple of times!

It is kind of fun, and easier(!), to teach/introduce subjects the second time around when I sort of know what I'm doing.

Classics For Early Readers

That's the classic book my daughter is reading now.

While the Dick and Jane series is *old* and oft-cricized (*sight* words, low phonetical emphasis) I've found them to be very good, actually perfect reading exercises for my daughter - the 4.70 year old Princess. An incipient reader, I make her say each word aloud and we re-read each page until she can do so without any help.

Your local government library should have them.

If not you can buy them for next to nuthin'. Get the bigger books though. Heck they are only $8 apiece and you'll get good use out of them - especially if you have a brood:

Dick and Jane - Fun With Our Family

Dick and Jane - We Play And Pretend

Homeschooling - Enabling Concentrated Study

Even though we're having a blast down in Florida....the kids are still doing their daily *work*.

I would say that for the first 1.5 years (age 3 5/8 to 5 1/8) my son was primarily focused on math and reading.

But since we hit algebra so fast I've really cooled it with the math - almost to the point of doing nothing. So for just about the past 12 months the Prince has been primarily reading.

Let's just say I think it paid off.

Recall that four months ago I co-read the first Harry Potter book with him. Actually, I did essentially all of the reading (and explaining). See - Marginalizing A Gay Wizard Kid.

Well I wasn't going to read another one of those inane books. So we took the *audiobook* route instead. The Prince listened to Harry Potter books 2-6 while he played with his LEGOS, before he went to bed at night, and often when he got up in the morning. After he finished each audiobook I usually went out and borrowed the DVD from the library and let him watch the motion picture. Note he did not *read along* with these audiobooks as he did with many other ones - particularly when he was learning to read.

Ten days ago we were at Walmart down here in Naples and he grabbed the 7th and final Harry Potter book - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - off the shelf. So for a mere $8.95 we bought it.

Guess what, this one he read, all on his own, all 749 pages, in 1.5 weeks!

They say the *read alone* age of that one is around 12 so the 6.17 year old is roughly 5-6 years/grade levels advanced on the reading front. And, BTW, that's just on pure ability level, in terms of volume or prolificacy our son is probably in a whole other league. (Since we left for Florida 20 days ago, he's probably read 1300 pages in other books additional to this one!)

So 1 year plus of focusing on math launched him 6-7 grade levels...

And it looks like 1 year of furious reading also launched him about as many *grade levels*.

What does this mean? Or what does this show?

I submit that if anything it demonstrates the sheer, unmatched power of concentrated study.

Here he is one recent morning, with a cleaner nose:

It was probably 7:30am or so and he did, well, just what he does on many mornings these days.

He stumbled out of bed, blanket in tow, and cracked open his book.

For his father (and mother) this is such an unbelievable sight to behold - there's no hunger complaints, crankiness, or pleas to watch the color TV. And there's no parental yelling, hurrying or scurrying to catch a jail bus...

I was moved, as I so often am on our glorious homeschooling journey, to capture the moment with a picture.

Who Would Want The Napping Dinosaur, Anyway?

What's your policy on advertising the current book you're reading?

I think most people genuinely try to hide the cover of their book lest anyone cast judgment on what they've chosen - heck, even I do that sometimes to forestall questions/conversations from adjacent Morons.

Yet I always crane my neck to see what others are reading!

Some 'old coot' on the beach the other day was reading the above.

I just had to look it up when I got back. Here's the link with explanatory subtitle:

You Can't Have Him, He's Mine: A Woman's Guide to Affair-Proofing Her Relationship

Why the bleep might a sixty-something 'old coot' be reading THAT!

He was either researching *escape strategies*...

OR it might have been one of those classic cases where the 'old bag' wife just grabs one of her cheesy novels or any old book and throws it to her illiterate aliterate husband, imploring him to *read something*. I'm pretty sure this is what my mother does to my old man. He obliges too - reading at about 2 pages per hour through his closed eye-lids.

Birth Of An Author?

I'm not sure if I mentioned this on my blog already, but my 6.14 year old homeschooled son and I recently conceived and started writing a *story*.

It's about a personified pencil - PencilEd (a play on "pencil head"), his severed hindquarters EraserBurt (a play on "eraser butt"), and sundry similar characters. See his post - Pencil Ed.

Anyways I came up with the initial idea (I think), we talked about it a lot, and then set to work trying to sketch the cast and storyline.

Eventually we sat down, me at my PC and my son 6 feet away at his, and I created a *shared* Google Doc so he could read along as I started typing up the ideas we had been jawboning. I kind of got into it a little but my son....he was absolutely RIVETED in his seat.

It was all he wanted to do for weeks thereafter!

"Dad, can we do some more PencilEd???", became a nagging refrain.

I did do a little more with him but then I checked out on our joint-venture completely. PencilEd was a casualty of limited time and priorities.  A horrible homeschooling parent, I've been leaning more and more on edu-activities THAT DID NOT INVOLVE ME.

But in hindsight my negligence looks like a masterstroke. One day a couple of weeks ago the 6 year old Prince sat down and continued the story all on his own. He implored me to take a look at it more than a few times but I never did - until just the other day.

I was absolutely blown-away with what he wrote. And when I showed it to my first wife she too was incredulous, and interrogated me hard as to whether or not I *helped* him. I most certainly DID NOT.

Here's a link to a copy of our very rough story. The beginning is almost all my work but I clearly indicate where my son takes over:

Pencil Edventures

What do y'all think?

I was particularly taken aback by his penchant for *suspense* and *flow*; and I like how he changed fonts/font sizes for emphasis. He is only 6 after all.

But realize that he's read nothing short of a bazillion books already. So he's well-aquainted with basic literary form.

See also:

Prince C-Nut - Book Devourer

Raising a Bibliophile.

A Large, Devilish Vocabulary

So my son , the 38 lb 6.12 year old Prince, was wrestling with one of my extremely obese cousins (a medical professional!) during Christmas-related festivities.

In one particular move, my cousin cruelly rolled the full burden of his corpulence on top of my little guy. The Prince screamed, jumped out, and hollered with a pointed finger, "YOU FIEND!"

Hah! Only a couple of people in the room were familiar with the term fiend ("devil, demon").

But I guess that's to be expected when - with no color TV or video games available - a kid reads science fiction and fantasy books all day long.

Just before Christmas he read THREE Charlie Bone books - a jaw-dropping total of 1,200 pages - in a 10 day period.

Starfall Expansion?

I'm not sure when it happened, but Starfall.com, the popular free online phonics website, has branched out.

My kids are messing around with *math* on it now.

The new site is - More.Starfall.com

I think someone was recently asking me for a *math* Starfall. Well there it is!

Email it to your nieces, nephews, and grandkids, will ya?

See also - Web Homeschooling.

Book Rec - The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

I just read this absolutely terrific book - The Teacher Who Couldn't Read

I'm, luckily, not very experienced in *special ed* and wouldn't have thought a book on anomalous illiteracy would grab me as it did.

But John Corcoran's autobiographic account of how he went through life: school, college, a career in teaching(!), how he was a husband, father, and very successful real estate developer all without being able to read a single word until he was 48 was not only fascinating, but extraordinarily educational.

The real power of this book is that it's a window into the world of illiterates. Think about it. If somebody can actually read this post or Corcoran's book they will, by definition, probably have great difficulty seeing the world through illiterate eyes. Right off the bat the book opens with Corcoran trying to ad-lib his way through reading Rapunzel, a story he wasn't familiar with, to his 6 year old daughter. In the background, tears streamed down his wife's face as she overheard him stammer his way past his daughter's corrections.

I mean who can believe a guy could actually teach high school without the ability to read?

Well, he had his pet students read to him written communications from the principal aloud. He'd fake injuries (e.g. a sprained wrist, replete with bandages) to get others to take dictation and fill out his job applications. His wife and girlfriends did a lot of his required reading and homework. He'd bluff his way through a menu by ordering whatever his date said she wanted. As a student, when the teacher asked him to read aloud in class, he'd sit there silent and sometimes even get fresh or goofy to mask the fact that he COULDN'T READ A SINGLE WORD. Corcoran even took to breaking into his professors' offices and stealing tests. In fact, he cultivated many *bad* traits - beyond the LYING - throughout his life to compensate for his illiteracy. And that's, IMO, one of the subtle yet trenchant points of this book - that frustrated, misfit students can easily morph into bullies, criminals, teenage parents, liars, politicians(!), wastoids, Heathers, or some other anti-social life form all on account of the pressures and failures of age-graded, government education.

Heck I was bored OUT OF MY MIND in school....and behold the psychopath that I evolved into!

So why exactly couldn't John Corcoran read?

Well he actually had an auditory dsyfunction - one that prevented him from hearing and distinguishing between the different phonetic sounds in a word.

Part of the cure was a *multi-sensory* approach to reading. Don't ask me what that entailed. All I gathered was that he had to focus on learning sounds by watching his lips/mouth move in the mirror or something.

But the thrust of the book transcended this one man's peculiar battle with illiteracy - even if his story all by itself was compelling read.  Now when I scan the subway car or supermarket I realize that many of the people standing next to me can't read a lick and I can better appreciate how much of a burden that is to bear.  And this is precisely one of the main reasons why we should read....to gain a better understanding of realities staring us in the face, is it not?

I give this one almost my highest recommendation for those of you out there interested in matters of education.  It's an older book so your local government library should have it.

Sorry, I couldn't resist!

Prince C-Nut - Book Devourer

My son's reading ability really took off about 14 months ago. Here's a clip I posted last September when he was 4.8 years old:



Since then he's been a real joy to *homeschool*. Whenever there's dead time, and I do have him awake for nearly 14 hours a day(!), and I think he needs to do something *educational*, I simply tell him to grab one of his library books and *read 3 chapters* or whatever. And magically off he goes - fully sedated by a book instead of a color TV or a Nintendo DS. Some days I may send him off to a quiet corner 5 or 6 different times; he reads nonstop from his backseat stockpile of books when in the car; PLUS he's allowed to read every night before bed almost to his heart's content.

All parents can relate to the wondrous feeling of seeing their kids asleep in bed at night. NEVER are they more adorable then at this unconscious end-of-the-long-day moment!

Well, when I see my son immersed in a book I'm similarly overwhelmed with joy. And I take great pains to never interrupt his concentration a la a sleeping baby.

I've been trying to get him to list each book he reads in his *Book's* Google Word Doc but he's so voracious, many have been missed. Nonetheless, here's a glimpse of what he's read:

August 2010


Stink #1, #2, by Megan McDonald
Outernet #1 by Steve Skidmore
My Father's Dragon By Ruth Stiles Gannett
Elmer and the Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett
The Wind and the Willow - Illustrated Classic


September 2010
The Dragons of Blueland by Ruth Stiles Gannett
Stink #3, #4 by Megan McDonald
Pass the Quill, I'll write a draft by Robert Quackenbush
Meet Thomas Jefferson by Marvin Barrett
Stuart's cape By Sara Pennypacker
The Empty Squirrel by Carol Carrick
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory By Ronald Dahl
The Mad Mad Mad Mad Treasure Hunt by Megan McDonald
The Junior Science Book of Trees By Robert S. Lemmon
Who Was Claude Monet - By Ann Waldron
Harry Potter 1, 2, 3 (dad read and audio)
Claude Monet Sunshine and Waterlilies by Steven Packard
Robinson Crusoe - Daniel Defeo Illustrated Classic, mom read to me
The Prince and the Pauper, by Mark Twain, mom read to me
Graphic Novels- goosebumps, a whole bunch!
Choose Your Own Adventures, The Mystery of Chimney Rock
The Adventures of Ook and Gluk By George Beard
Toys Go out




October 2010
The Twits by Ronald Dahl
A Picture for Marc by Eric Kimmel
The Kuiper Belt By Fran Howard
Jupiter - Larry Dane Brimmer
Constellations By Dana Meachen Rau
Stars By Paul P. Sipiera
Flat Stanley - Stanley in Space By Jeff Brown
Andrews Lost - In the Deep
Andrews Lost - in Time
Andrews Lost - on Earth
Andrews Lost - with the Dinosaurs
Andrews Lost - in the Ice Age
Binky the space cat By Ashley Spires
The Littles By John Peterson
Toy Dance Party By Emily Jenkins
Pontiac by Virgina F. Voight
Matthew Meets the Wall By Patricia Reilly Giff
Mother Teresa By Candice F. Ransom
Tecumseh By Anne Scharff


November 2010
A to Z Mysteries - The Zombie Zone
Sally Ride by Barbara Kramer






1. Dinosaurs Before Dark, Magic Tree House, Book 1
2. The Knight at Dawn, Magic Tree House, Book 2
3. Mummies in the Morning, Magic Tree House, Book 3
4. Pirates past Noon, Magic Tree House, Book 4
5. Night of the Ninjas, Magic Tree House, Book 5
6. Afternoon on the Amazon, Magic Tree House, Book 6
7. Sunset of the Sabertooth, Magic Tree House, Book 7
8. Midnight on the Moon, Magic Tree House, Book 8
9. Dolphins at Daybreak, Magic Tree House, Book 9
10. Ghost Town at Sundown, Magic Tree House, Book 10
11. Lions at Lunchtime, Magic Tree House, Book 11
12. Polar Bears Past Bedtime, Magic Tree House, Book 12
13. Vacation Under The Volcano, Magic Tree House, Book 13
14. Day of the Dragon King, Magic Tree House, Book 14
15. Viking Ships at Sunrise, Magic Tree House, Book 15
16. Hour of the Olympics, Magic Tree House, Book 16
17. Tonight on the Titanic, Magic Tree House, Book 17
18. Buffalo Before Breakfast, Magic Tree House, Book 18
19. Tigers at Twilight, Magic Tree House, Book 19
20. Dingoes at Dinnertime, Magic Tree House, Book 20
21. Civil War on Sunday, Magic Tree House, Book 21
22. Revolutionary War on Wednesday, Magic Tree House, Book 22
23. Twister on Tuesday, Magic Tree House, Book 23
24. Earthquake in the Early Morning, Magic Tree House, Book 24
25. Stage Fright on a Summer Night, Magic Tree House, Book 25
26. Good Morning, Gorillas, Magic Tree House, Book 26
27. Thanksgiving on Thursday, Magic Tree House, Book 27
28. High Tide in Hawaii, Magic Tree House, Book 28


Merlin Missions


29. Christmas in Camelot, Magic Tree House, Book 29
30. Haunted Castle On Hallow’s Eve, Magic Tree House, Book 30
31. Summer Of The Sea Serpent, Magic Tree House, Book 31
32. Winter Of The Ice Wizard, Magic Tree House, Book 32
33. Carnival at Candlelight, Magic Tree House, Book 33
34. Season of the Sandstorms, Magic Tree House, Book 34
35. Night of the New Magicians, Magic Tree House, Book 35
36. Blizzard of the Blue Moon, Magic Tree House, Book 36
37. Dragon of the Red Dawn, Magic Tree House, Book 37
38. Monday with a Mad Genius, Magic Tree House, Book 38
39. Dark Day in the Deep Sea, Magic Tree House, Book 39


40. Eve of the Emperor Penguin, Magic Tree House, Book 40
41. Moonlight on the Magic Flute, Magic Tree House, Book 41
42. A Good Night for Ghosts, Magic Tree House, Book 42
43. Leprechaun in Late Winter,, Magic Tree House, Book 43




A Child's Garden of Verses - Robert Louis Stevenson


A to Z Mysteries - The Orange Outlaw
A to Z Mysteries - The Quicksand Question
A to Z Mysteries - The Runaway Racehorse
A to Z Mysteries - The Yellow Yacht
A to Z Mysteries - The Haunted Hotel


The Merry Adventures Of Robin Hood - Howard Pyle


Kidnapped - Robert Louis Stevenson


The Time Machine - H.G. Wells


A to Z Mysteries - The Panda Puzzle
A to Z Mysteries -The White Wolf
A to Z Mysteries -Missing Mummy


Andrew's Lost - On The Dog


White Fang - Jack London


A to Z Mysteries - The Unwilling Umpire
A to Z Mysteries - The Jaguar's Jewel
A to Z Mysteries - The School Skeleton


Andrew's Lost - In The Bathroom
Andrew's Lost - In The Kitchen


The Red Badge of Courage - Stephen Crane


Andrew's Lost - In The Garden


A to Z Mysteries - The Goose's Gold
A to Z Mysteries - The Deadly Dungeon
A to Z Mysteries - The Empty Envelope
A to Z Mysteries - The Absent Author
A to Z Mysteries - THE BALD BANDIT
A to Z Mysteries - THE CANARY CAPER


Andrew's Lost - under water


Horrible harry goes to sea - Suzy Kline
Horrible harry takes the cake - Suzy Kline


Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Stolen Diamonds - by David A. Adler
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the Mystery Writer - by David A. Adler
Song Lee and the leech man - Suzy Kline
Cam Jansen and the Scary Snake Mystery - by David A. Adler
Otis Spofford - Beverly Clearly
The War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells
The Animal Rescue Club - John Himmeman


Cam Jansen and the Birthday Mystery - by David A. Adler


Cam Jansen and the Chocolate Fudge Mystery - by David A. Adler


Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the U.F.O - by David A. Adler
Cam Jansen and the Mystery of the New Girl - by David A. Adler
Young Cam Jansen and the The Lion's Lunch Mystery - by David A. Adler
Cam Jansen and the Lost Tooth - by David A. Adler






Andrews Lost - On The Whale - by J.C. Greenburg


Andrews Lost - On The Reef - by J.C. Greenburg


George The Drummer Boy - Nathaniel Benchley


Kidnapped at the Capitol - Ron Roy


The Paint Brush Kid - Clyde Robert Bulla


Cam Jansen and the Catnapping Mystery - by David A. Adler
Gigantic Ants and Other Cases - by Sey


The Poppy Seeds - Clyde Robert Bulla
The Secrets of Droon - The Hidden Staircase and Magic Carpet
The Secrets of Droon - Journey to the Volcano palace
The Secrets of Droon - The Mysterious island
The Secrets of Droon - City in the Clouds
The Secrets of Droon - The Great Ice battle
The Secrets of Droon - The Sleeping Giant of Goll
The Secrets of Droon - Into the Land of Lost
The Secrets of Droon - The golden wasp
The Secrets of Droon - The Tower of the elf king
The Secrets of Droon - The Quest for the Queen
The Secrets of Droon - The Hawk Bandits of trarkoom
The Secrets of Droon - Under the Serpent sea
The Secrets of Droon - The Mask of mailban
The Secrets of Droon - The Voyage of Jaffa Wind
The Secrets of Droon - The Moon Scroll


Wiley & Grandpa's creature features - Dracula vs. grandpa at the monster truck spectacular
Wiley & Grandpa's creature features - Grandpa's zombie BBQ
Wiley & Grandpa's creature features - Monster fish frenzy


Encyclopedia Brown - Boy detective
Encyclopedia Brown and the Case of the Disgusting Sneakers - Donald J. sobol


The Secrets of Droon - The knights of Silversnow
The Secrets of Droon - Dream thief
The Secrets of Droon - Search for the dragon ship


The Secrets of Droon - In the ice caves of Krog
The Secrets of Droon - Flight of the genie
The Secrets of Droon - Isle of Mists
The Secrets of Droon - Fortress of the treasure Queen
The Secrets of Droon - The race to Doobesh
The Secrets of Droon - The riddle of Zorfendof
The Secrets of Droon - The Moon Dragon
The Secrets of Droon - The Chariot of Queen Zara

I could probably go into my library account and grab the titles of the missing ones but that's a task for a less busy time in my life.

Have you read as many books as my 5.96 year old has in the past year or so?

BeHold Moronic Little Kids

Friends recently attended the *orientation* for their daughter's upcoming kindergarten class next year - a class my son, had we stayed in the area and not decided to homeschool, would have been theoretically enrolled in.

With expectations in the sewer (thanks to moi?) they said it wasn't too bad.

That is until the end when the teacher said:

...By the end of the year we hope the students have all learned how to HOLD a book properly.

Hah!

Not read a book, but HOLD one!

Hey, if they can hold a video game console at that age, then mastering a book...

While that pic above may be a fake....it's still darn funny. You just have to give credit where it's due.

Making Virtual Flashcards

Check out my 3.86 year old's new *pics*:















Those are from her *word pics* folder that we just created on my desktop.

At this point, she's learning phonics, learning to read. So I pick the word; we Google an image of it; she gets to choose which one she wants (it's quite the process); and I'll scratch the spelling on it with a photo editor if needed (but only in the color the Princess demands!).

Of course when we're perusing *her pics* she has to say the word, spell it, and say it again. All this may seem rather simple and mundane but I submit it most definitely is not.

This make-your-own approach gives the child a very active part in the educational process. It'll be a whole lot of fun for them and far more effective than a boring phonics book.

Both she and her older brother LOVE to sit at my computer and flip through their pics. The enthusiasm for this - and most other things *computer* - is simply off the chart.

For more on *pics* see - Another Great Activity For Kids.