Our Latest Five In Row: Mrs. Katz & Tush

We haven't rowed a book in a while.  

I don't consider us experts on Five in a Row, but we have rowed quite a few of the books. 

My oldest (11) seems to not appreciate it as much anymore, and I let that stop us from rowing books last semester.

Over the Christmas break I asked my 8 year old what HE wanted to do in school in 2013.   He said "I miss Five in a Row".  

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Using Five In A Row - With a Printable Planning Page

* I am very thankful to today's Homeschool Guest, Jen.  The curriculum she is writing about is near and dear to my heart:  Five in a Row.   We have rowed many books over the past few years and thoroughly enjoyed each and every one of them.  I KNOW you will find Jen's post informative and helpful.  Don't miss her printable at the end, either!

 

Five in a Row {FIAR} is, hands down, my favorite homeschool resource.  I love being able to introduce great literature to my children.  I think it helps my children develop a taste for good books at a young age and stay away from some of the mindless “twaddle” available.  The FIAR curriculum guide is a gentle, but very thorough way to introduce a broad range of different subjects to your children.

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Free Read-Aloud Resources ~ How We're Listening To Tom Sawyer

The Writing With Ease selection for GMan for the coming week is Tom Sawyer.    We choose many of our read alouds based on this writing curriculum (and also from The Story of the World).

With so much classic literature, we can download the book for free on Kindle.  

I thought with this, book, however, that I would search for a free audio download.  We tried the Librivox recording, but after about 5 minutes the kids told me they didn't like it so much, so I continued to search.

This free recording, from Open Book Audio, is fabulous!   The performance of the different voices is so authentic.  I'm finding that I need to stop every so often and explain some of the vernacular and vocabulary.  I had forgotten what gem of a book this is... how it forces us back to our own childhoods, and the beautiful way in which Mark Twain describes the life of Tom Sawyer. 

I supposed it might bore the children a little bit, but they have happily just laid on the family room floor listening.   The quality writing just draws them into the story. 

The entire book downloaded into my iTunes and we have been listening happily this week.  (It's kind of nice for me to be able to do some housework while the kids are doing art project, etc... and listening.)  

Do you use audio books for read-alouds?   

What is your favorite book on audio?