My Father's Dragon

I was so excited that Ammon finished his literature lapbook. I couldn't wait to post pics for everyone. Oh, wait there are no pictures. He went and lost it before I got a picture! That turkey. Anyway, we lapbooked MyFather's Dragon by Ruth Stiles Gannett. What a cute little book. It is so challenging to find books for his level--either they are not challenging or too difficult, too short or too long. This one was perfect. It has short little chapters that he read out loud everyday. It had new vocabulary (it was written in 1948, so the vocabulary was probably not new to kids at that time), but it was not difficult. It is about a boy that runs away to Wild Island to save a dragon that is forced to work for the animals. Along the way he meets all the animals and has to help or trick them to get away. I definitely would recommend it as a read aloud to a family with young (about 5-8 years old) children. Ammon also had to look about real facts about the animals from the book. I wish I would have known about it when Tristian was that age! Now the challenge of finding him another book. Don't get me wrong, he loves to read, but I have had enough of The Magic Treehouse. I need to have one in my hot little hands by Tuesday. If he finds his lapbook, I will post pics of it. It must be here or at Grandma's house...

Oh, and a plug for Tristian. He is doing awesome on his history papers. Ask him about Genghis Khan or Marco Polo!

Mandy needs to do more blogging!

So, I have been wanting to start blogging for awhile, I just get so busy. Then, I saw Quintus' wordle of "our" blog. I was quite disappointed to see that football was one of the biggest words. While that does represent Tristian, that does not represent our family. I need to get on here with a more balanced view. I want to share what we are doing in school. Sometimes I feel like noone cares what I do all day, so if I blog it, I can pretend like someone cares. I also want to start writing book reviews. I am trying to read so much and I need to learn how to communicate better about it. As soon as I get around to sync-ing our camera with my computer, I will takes pictures of our school projects and post those, but here is a start.

I finished reading Eat Cake by Jeanne Ray. Not something I would have picked up on my own, but that was the book chosen by my book club. It is a very fast and easy read. If you like books that are happy ending no matter how impractical it is to get there, then this is the book for you. It was fun at points--like thinking about how you would go to bathroom with use of your hands. But overall, unrealistic. Can you really bake over 100 cakes a week with just one oven and with out the health department shutting you down? Would your 70+ parents really come spend the night with you just because they have had an argument? Usually by then people are more mature in their argument skills.

Last night I finshed reading Magyk by Angela Sage. I had to read this since I borrowed it from someone six months ago (I promise I really truly don't usually keep books so long!) For a kid's book, I give it a thumbs up. First when I have read in a while that wasn't totally predictable. Some of the general plot was predictable--I mean you know the kids are going to win, but I didn't see the way the would win coming. You would have to be about 10 to not have figured out who the mystery child was. I was hoping it would be a book I could have Tristian read, but I don't think I will ask him to read it. I just don't think it is his type of book. There are more in the series. I would read them if I was looking for some easy reads to kill time, but my to be read list is so long that they will go to the bottom of the list.

Next on my list is Thomas Paine's Common Sense. I have been wanting to read it, but I now have another book club and that is the book for this month, so it has given me a deadline.