Read Aloud Challenge -- December 8

I've neglected to check in with Debra's weekly Read Aloud Challenge for the past few weeks. Honestly, I got a bit bored with simply posting the picture of Rifles for Watie. It was a lot more satisfying to post weekly updates when we were reading shorter books.

We finally finished Rifles for Watie around Thanksgiving and set aside the history based read-alouds for the time being.

Earlier today we finished our traditional holiday read-aloud -- The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. "Hey! Unto you a child is born!" If you've never read Barbara Robinson's tale of how the Herdman's changed a church's traditional Christmas pageant, you absolutely must share it with your children this year.

I'm not sure what we'll start next. I know that the next week or so is going to be crazy, and I may just have to put read-alouds on hold for a while.

After our holiday craziness is over, we'll likely start back with history read-alouds. I think we've sufficiently covered the Civil War. I need to hunt for a book that covers the Reconstruction or other late 1800s events. I'm not sure I'm ready to jump all the way to World War 1 yet.

Lately Lauren's been listening to the Julie series of books from American Girl. I find it funny that Julie is one of their historical dolls -- the books are set all the way back in the 1970s. Actually, it's quite interesting to see all the historical details that are woven into the stories. We're nearly finished with the second one in the set of six books. Lauren also has the audiobooks checked out of the library, but she doesn't mind if I read the book during the day and then she listens to the exact same thing at bedtime on her CD player.

If you'd like to see what other parents are reading to their children or if you'd like to share what you've been reading, please join all of us that check-in at Footprints in the Butter.