Helpful Homeschool Habit: Reading

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This week following the change to daylight savings time always seems to be an adjustment in many ways. Especially for children going to bed when it’s still a little bit light outside. But I am sharing a habit that helps! A habit that is also one of the ways we grow a love of reading in our home.

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The Key is Getting to Bed Early

Yes, with daylight savings time everyone isn’t quite ready for bed anyway. We’ve found the answer is simply to tell the children that they can read in bed for half an hour. We actually started this with Littlest Girl when she was recovering from sickness a couple of weeks ago. Since then she’s read Charlotte’s Web, My Father’s Dragon, Ramona and Beezus and is currently reading Henry Huggins.

Lil’ Buddy has a wonderful set of Thomas the Train books with a matching reader. We call it his Thomas Kindle. So even though he isn’t full out reading on his own, he can read Thomas with his ‘kindle’.

Read the Bible

This is also a wonderful way to build a habit of reading the Bible at bedtime. “Yes, if you go ahead and get in the bed now, you can read your Bible!” We have also been building the habit Kendra shared in her post, Early to Rise. Starting our day with the younger ones choosing a Bible to read.

I first heard about this habit from the same book we learned about our Morning Room Time habit:

. (You might also like our Bible Study and Character Training for Multiple Ages).

Here’s another benefit and habit builder. Putting that wonderful book beside your bed when you turn out the light means that sometimes the reading continues when your child wakes in the morning. That happened several times over the last couple of weeks. We delayed math one morning so Littlest Girl could finish Charlotte’s Web.

Do it while they are young and it will be a habit and just may lead to some independent learning in your middle and high schoolers.

1. (a favorite from this week!) This #homeschool moment brought to you by 2nd grader teaching kindergartener: “so if you have 5 dimes that’s like five groups of ten. Or 5×10 and that’s multiplication!” | 2. Learning about seasons, the hemispheres and the equator with Amanda Bennett’s Spring Surprises Unit Study (only $5 through 3/16) | 3. Cutting and pasting with Rod and Staff K books | 4. A favorite homeschool view in our school room.

Spring Surprises

This week the younger two (kindergartener and 2nd grader) and I enjoyed Spring Surprises unit study from Amanda Bennett. I’ll be sharing more detail on it next week! It was perfect timing with the spring like weather we had part of this week. We found signs of spring all around our yard.

How do you like to go up in a swing,
Up in the air so blue?
Oh, I do think it the pleasantest thing
Ever a child can do! ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

1. Scootering the favorite local trail. | 2 Lil’ Buddy is swinging all on his own now. It’s such freedom for him! | 3. Eldest Boy volunteered to pressure wash the front walk and the back patio! | 4. Sliding and cloud watching on a gorgeous day!

Middle and High School Highlights at Hodgepodge

1. Never too old to draw with chalk and declare it a beautiful day! | 2. She’s reading Apologia’s Marine Biology to me – all about the frogfish. | 3. Practicing piano (in the home stretch on recital as well as drama troupe productions!) | 4. More Apologia Marine Biology.

• Sixth grade Middle Girl is has found a good groove by retreating to her room after breakfast and math. She can have a bit of quiet doing language arts, reading her science and history. She can also practice her lines and songs for Mrs. Potts in the upcoming Beauty & the Beast without disturbing others doing math  🙂
• 10th grade Eldest Girl had the opportunity to help lead a middle school lock in at church last week. She also went with the youth to visit a retirement home. There she shared what the Lord is doing in her life right now. She also got to talk to a sweet lady who played the piano there.
• I love how 9th grade Eldest Boy just breezes through math and shares highlights from marine biology. He has already been flipping through the Apologia catalog looking at high school science for next year.

More Hodgepodge:

• If you are working on building and developing habits too, you might like our sister site, Habits for a Happy Home!
• I’d love some tea time tips! In my continuing Healthy Mama series, I shared Why I Quit Coffee After All These Years.
• Do you love Pinterest? I shared my favorite Pinterest boards for Hodgepodge, The Curriculum Choice and Habits for a Happy Home. I also co-hostess the Ultimate Homeschool Pinning Party here each Friday.

Many thanks to our hostesses!

• Collage Friday hostess Mary at Home Grown LearnersWeekly Wrap-Up hostess Kris at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers

• Finishing Strong at Education Possible

Have you seen signs of spring where you live?