We began a read aloud Monday: The Horse and His Boy by C. S. Lewis. We are not done reading. As a matter of fact we still have 10 chapters left(there are 15 in the book). Now remember, we are on basics week. That means we are reading this book and doing NO related assignments. Reading for the fun of reading a good story together is great!
If you are unfamiliar with this book: This tells the story of two human runaways trying to escape “to Narnia and the North” along with two Talking Horses. It is a great adventure.
We’ve also found another use for our home-dyed playsilks! The kids spread their playsilk in the listening spot of their choice. This may be on the couch, the chair, the floor, or even under a desk - they prefer to call that in a cave. Then they stay put. No creeping off the playsilk to bother your sibling. No running around like crazy while mom tried to read over the noise. Each child can bring one quiet activity onto their playsilk. We had previously tried small foam rectangles about 4"x6", which were not as successful because the kids couldn’t see the spot once they sat on it.
Okay, back to the read aloud! Our book is The Horse and His Boy by C.S. Lewis. I learned a neat tidbit once about The Chronicles of Narnia. Originally they were published in this order:
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- Prince Caspian
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The Silver Chair
- The Horse and His Boy
- The Magician’s Nephew
- The Last Battle
However, C. S. Lewis expressed his desire that the order of the books be changed. He wanted readers to experience his Narnia books in this order:
- The Magician’s Nephew
- The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
- The Horse and His Boy
- Prince Caspian
- The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
- The Silver Chair
- The Last Battle
We read them in C. S. Lewis’ preferred order at our house, though you are welcome to try a different order at your house. ;-)
The bigger kids are all enjoying The Horse and His Boy. I asked them each what they like about the story so far. Emma is especially thrilled with talking horses. No big surprise there. Joseph likes Shasta “because he is a boy”. Makayla likes Bree the talking war horse. She says, “Bree is funny, and a little bossy.” Hmm, that sounds a bit familiar...
Be sure to check out this week’s Read Aloud Thursday post HERE at Hope Is the Word and link up with your own read aloud story!
6 comments:
Hi Tristan,
I linked over from Amy's Read-Aloud Thursday.
I think The Horse and His Boy was our hands-down favorite Narnia book. The first time I read the series (10+ yrs ago), we read The Magician's Nephew after The LW&W, and we loved the "Ah ha!" value of it. :-)
Have a great basics week (I read your blog entry on that as well). We home educate year-round, too, and during the last week of every month, we have Off Week (or Grace Week, as some call it). It's a wonderful breather for us.
Oh, I love ALL the Narnia books, but I think The Silver Chair might be on of my favorites because I love several of the characters in it so much. The Horse and His Boy is wonderful, too, though.
I'm off to read about your basics week!
Thanks for sharing your read-alouds this week!
It's hard to pick a favorite from this series -- I love them all! But there's a passage in THAHB where Aslan and Shasta talk about why he's had to go through all that he's gone through, and I return to it often. Wonderful stuff to be reading together with your children!
We have enjoyed this book as well. As a matter of fact we purchased the audio drama of all the Chronicles of Narnia Books and listened to them on a long roadtrip to Nauvoo this summer. We posted about it on our blog at
http://nogginsandnonsense.blogspot.com/2009/08/chronicles-of-narnia-audio-dramas.html We highly recommend them.
I plan on getting to these next year, once the boys are a tad bit older. I just learned the order thing the other day while researching them, very interesting!
My oldest is now 18 and read-aloud time is still our favorite time of the day.
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