Girls and Reading - Recommendations and Advice

This is my sweet daughter - she is 10, loves to read, and has a heart that is so big.  She is compassionate, caring, and very sensitive.   Oh, and did I mention she LOVES horses?

If there's one thing I KNOW my husband I did right, it is instill a love of reading in our children!  We read to them from birth on, and reading is an integral part of our day.   I don't feel qualified to give advice about much, but reading is an area I feel I know a bit about.     

I've had a few people ask me recently what she likes to read, and how do I get her to read so much.  

Great Girl Books for an "almost 'tween"

The Faithgirlz Series - specifically any of the books about Sophie - these are wonderful, Christian books that Miss B can't get enough of.  She downloads them to her Kindle.  One was free and a few more have just been $3.99.  She reads them over and over.  

Detectives in Togas - great history mysteries which were recommended in The Story of The World Activity Guide.   There are several of these books.

Keystone Stables Series - Miss B has read A Horse to Love and enjoyed it very much.  This fuels her love of horses.  They seem to be quick, enjoyable reads.  

The American Girl Books - she has read almost every character book, but recently discovered the larger books about each girl's world.  She gets our librarian to reserve them in other branches and has read quite a few.  I love it, because she is learning so much about history!  

Dolphin Diaries - this is also a series and allows your daughter to be transported into another world - where a young girl is sailing around the world researching dolphins - how great is that?

How To Get Your Daughter to Read

* Keep good reading material around your house - a bookshelf in their room, in the family room, or wherever you spend most of your time.  I also leave good books just "laying around" to get discovered!

*Make reading fun - we bought my daughter a Kindle for her 10th birthday - best investment ever!   She loves reading electronically and feels a kinship with her dad and I (because we do the same) She also has a book basket by her bed and lots of cute bookmarks.

*Make the library your friend - we know our librarians by name and they know my daughter's interests

*Choose friends who read - I have several friends whose daughters also love to read.  Miss B borrows books from them and even emails about the books she has read.  I love it!

*Model reading - we read All.The.Time!   We spend much more time reading than we do watching television, that's for sure.  

Care to share any tips with me?  How about some books my daughter might like to add to her reading list?  

Math Mammoth ~ Our Review

My six year old son has been using a Math Mammoth workbook in our homeschool over the past several weeks:  Math Mammoth Multiplication 1 .   This book is part of the Blue Series.  Yes, Math Mammoth does offer full curriculum, but for review purposes I am going to concentrate on the Blue Series book we have been using.  If you want general information about other products from Math Mammoth, please visit the page for Parents, which describes MM in detail.  

Math Mammoth stresses mental math and conceptual understanding --- I LOVED THIS from the get-go.   

What is Math Mammoth's BLUE SERIES?


The Blue Series are worktexts on specific topics.   Per Math Mammoth:  "Worktext" means that the books contain both explanations of the concepts and lots of varied problems. It is like a textbook and workbook combined.


Maria Miller, the author of Math Mammoth is a homeschooling mother further describes the Blue Series in this way:

Each of the Blue Series books concentrates on a few topics only, such as addition & subtraction, place value, clock, measuring, money, multiplication, division, geometry, fractions, decimals, ratios, percent, integers, and so on. This topical arrangement makes the books suitable for many kinds of situations, such as:

• To supplement any other math curriculum;

• As a remedial material for students who are behind;

• As a review material on specific topics.

The Blue Series can be a full curriculum if you wish, but read the website carefully about this.  Math Mammoth does take careful research from the parent!

 The books are affordable; the downloadable versions range from $3-7.  You can't beat that.  These versions are also enabled for annotating - which means the student can use the annotating tools in Adobe or even the iPad for completing their work.   We did not use this.  I simply printed out the pages as we went and put them in a folder for my son.  I could see, however, that the feature was available.


Complete information about the Blue Series can be found on Math Mammoth's website, along with a list of all of the Blue Series worktexts available.  


At first glance, the whole Math Mammoth program and website appears confusing, but there is an option to take a tour of Math Mammoth for free (simply scroll to the bottom of this page and enter your email address).   I also found Maria Miller to be extremely helpful when trying to decide which product to choose!  




Our Impressions:  


I was looking for something to supplement my son's current curriculum - he LOVES math and needs to keep moving at a quick pace in this subject.  Math Mammoth was perfect for that!


I loved the fact that the worktext was supplementing what my son was already learning in his math curriculum we have been with for the past two years.   


Multiplication was presented in a very VISUAL way - which was appealing to my son, too.   It gave him different ways to VISUALIZE MULTIPLICATION.  Here is one of the pages from his worktext... 

The lessons were short, simple, and achievable.   


From the teacher perspective, the explanation was clear and concise.  All of the information I needed to teach him was contained in the .pdf download.


At the cost of $5 for this download, I thought it would be SO WORTH IT to have bought this myself.   I can definitely see using more Math Mammoth in the future.


After becoming more familiar with Math Mammoth, I could also see us possibly choosing one of their COMPLETE CURRICULUMS, too. 


Please please visit the crew blog to read what others are saying about Math Mammoth.  We've all reviewed different pieces of it and you will be able to get a more complete picture this way!  

Disclaimer: I received the above named product from TOS Crew in return for my honest review. I have not been compensated in any other form.