Gold, baby! Pure gold!

I teach my kids at home.  As hard as this path has been for me, there is one thing these kids and I have always done both well and enthusiastically: reading.  Good, solid, heart-warming, brain-stretching, eye-delighting reading.  From the time she could hear, Li'l Bit has loved chapter books just as much as picture books.  Gizmo and The Rascal are less accomidating to my lofty reading goals.  I distinctly remember loudly "reading over" an 18-month-old Gizmo as he slammed toys around and scaled walls.  I have had to convert to audio for most chapter books because my attention has to be spent keeping Gizmo and The Rascal in a listening state of mind.

So when I stumble across a new picture book that actually has meat to it?  I go bananas!  I gravitate toward books that recite scripture word for word or impart academic knowledge with ease.  Wonderful stories and beautiful illustrations never hurt--I love them with a passion--but I am tempted to pack every reading moment with pure brain protein.  (It's kind of a big deal that I'm responsible for their education.  See also, What am I missing?  Oh Dear God, what am I missing?)

My latest discovery was a total accident and I'm all like, why in the world did my teachers not read these books in class?!  The Rascal brings home all kinds of crazy stuff from the library.  My mighty mighty good man supervises library trips, and I simply reap the rewards.  This time she brought home this kind of hokey, old-looking book:

But then I opened it to read to the kids one day and I was awe-struck.  We were JUST memorizing the definition of a noun, and here is a fun, colorful book about all the different forms of a noun?!  And they are soaking up every single word I read out loud?  Sign me up!

So I'm on the Ruth Heller bandwagon.  She has a whole series on the parts of speech, and to make her even more amazing, she has other educational serieses!?  (Maybe she wrote a book on how to make series plural?)

For real y'all, go check out her author page and invest in some of these gems!  Great for your kids or great gifts of other little ones!!

Click here for her author page on Amazon.