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Favorite Homeschool Read Alouds 📖 *NEW* Ideas for Your Family!
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Jun 19, 2024
I love reading aloud to my kids! Here are some of our favorite homeschool read alouds we've enjoyed this year. MENTIONED IN THE VIDEO: All the books I mentioned are listed here ➡️ https://blessedhomeschool.com/amazon Favorite Homeschool Read Alouds Collab Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLT-99RlG8sVlKHoE5ep6MJjHTyH39r1ex Brave books: https://bravebooks.us/ ********************************************* Hey there! I’m Sara, and I’m a teacher-turned-homeschooling mom to 4 kiddos (including a set of twins!). I balance homeschooling while working full-time from home, and am so thankful you are here. I love sharing about homeschooling on my blog, Blessed Homeschool, where you’ll find tips, resources, and curriculum reviews. Whether you are a newbie or a veteran, I hope you will leave inspired and equipped with what you find. ********************************************* NEW TO HOMESCHOOLING?
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Hey there you guys! Welcome to today's video. I'm going to be sharing some of the favorite read
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alouds we've done as a family this year in our homeschool. These are books that all of my kids
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have enjoyed and I hope yours will too. All right before we get into all of the book suggestions
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I want to let you know that this video is part of a collaboration hosted by Davine from Calm
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in the Chaos Homeschool and Shauna from Homegrown Homeschool. All of us are joining in to share our
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favorite homeschool read alouds this year and some will be sharing their favorites throughout their
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years of homeschooling. So when you are done watching here, please check out the link in
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the description below so you can add it to your probably already growing long list of books that
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you can read aloud to your family. Okay so what I'm going to be talking about today mainly are books
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we are reading or have read aloud this year and a couple from last year. My kids are 5, 10, 10
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and 12 and when we do read aloud time, typically everyone is there listening. So I'm not going to
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say that you should only read these to little kids or older kids. All of my kids listen to them but
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most of these books are really kind of geared for my older kids. So probably upper elementary
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middle school aged, even though my little one listens in on them a lot. I will admit I didn't
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read aloud a whole lot to my family until COVID. My kids were what one, six, six, and eight then
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Wow time flies. So during COVID we jumped into the Harry Potter series and I would read this aloud to
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them every day. I knew my son would like the books but he didn't really want to pick them up and read
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them himself yet at that age so I read them aloud and my girls really enjoyed them too. I read aloud
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the entire series throughout the rest of that year and after we finished we were kind of in that
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routine of reading aloud so we kept picking other books and just kept going. Now I read aloud pretty
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much every night after dinner, well every night that we are home which is multiple nights a week
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Sometimes I'll read aloud before we go to bed as well but my kids love grabbing some dessert. We
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are a dessert family. I always try to have ice cream or some other small treat on hand. They will
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grab their dessert and my little one's job is to grab the current book we're reading and everyone
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will just sit around the kitchen table and listen together and I'm so glad that we got into this
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habit that this is part of our family routine now. It's really such a sweet time for us and we're
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going to continue this for a long time even as my kids get older. Reading aloud is still a great
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thing for older kids. Studies have shown that there are benefits like reduced stress, improved
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comprehension, things like that. Plus it simply shows that reading is fun and helps us to create
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some memories that are just for us. I highly recommend that you read to your older kids
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I would not have said that a few years ago probably. You just kind of think that older
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kids should be reading on their own all the time right but my son for example isn't the most eager
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reader but he really enjoys a read aloud time so he's getting exposed to different types of
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literature, different types of materials, then maybe he would pick up and read otherwise. Now
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that my kids are older there are usually read alouds from their curriculum that I will read
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and if there's not we'll pick something else. So first I'm going to share a couple that are not
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curriculum specific this year that we've just enjoyed and then I'll share some from their
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curriculum this year that are worth mentioning. And all of these I have added to my Amazon shop
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which I will link below so if you're interested in checking any of them out they will be really
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easy to find. Okay so first I'm sharing a couple of books that we actually read aloud at the end
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of our last school year. We were trying out a Sunlight HBL curriculum and we didn't get through
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all of the books but we read a lot of them last year and throughout the summer and there were a
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couple of them that we really enjoyed. So the first one is One Voice the story of William
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Wilberforce. The format of this book was completely different than anything we had read before. It's
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written in kind of short poems. My kids and I knew nothing about the British slave trade before
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reading this. We didn't know anything about William Wilberforce and we just thought this was really
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interesting. I think there are some mixed opinions on it. Some people I've heard or read reviews where
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they don't like the writing style they would prefer a book but I thought it was really interesting to
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have this in kind of poetry form. I love learning about William Wilberforce's life and how he
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devoted the entirety of it to the cause of ending the slave trade. It was really easy to read. I
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should say easy for me to read out loud because of the format but the verses in themselves were
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sometimes challenging to interpret and understand but it provided for some good conversation. After
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we read this one we read Cross Five Aprils and The Great Turkey Walk. I can't remember which one we
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read first but these were two others that we really liked. The Great Turkey Walk was just so
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funny. It's historical fiction a wild west style adventure. It's about a boy who struggles in
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school. I think he repeated third grade multiple times but he comes up with this big plan to earn
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money and the plan is to take like a thousand turkeys across the country where he can sell them
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for a lot more money than he bought them for. So it's all about his adventures doing that. My kids
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love this one. Love the adventures the character went through and it's based loosely on a true story
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too which is really fun. Across Five Aprils. This was not as much of a fun adventure type book. It's
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based in 1861 right at the time of the civil war and it's about a nine-year-old whose family is
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torn apart a little bit as different family members support different sides during the war. So some
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support the north some support the south. If you are studying the civil war this is a fantastic book
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to read to your kids. It doesn't take any political sides at all but gives a lot of details about the
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war and things that were going on back then. Okay next up I have to mention the Narnia books. I think
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this is like a homeschooler's requirement right? You guys have probably read or are reading these
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books maybe and if not definitely put them on your list. My kids love them so far. We are reading them
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in order which I think there is debate as to which order you should read them but we read Magician's
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Nephew and The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe and we're currently in the middle of The Horse and
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His Boy. We got a little sidetracked by some of our curriculum read-alouds but we will be finishing
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this one up soon and moving to the next one. All right next up is another series that you guys might
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have heard about or seen ads for. We have really enjoyed reading the Brave book series together. So
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this is my set that I bought. There are some books in here. I'll show you what they look like in just
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a second. You can get these books as a subscription if you want. They send out a new book every month
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which I did for a little while but you can also purchase single books on their website. We we just
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have so many of them now but they are great to add to your collection. So if you aren't familiar with
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Brave Books this is a company that was created to publish books without the progressive agenda that
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will show up in some children's books today. The founder really wanted to create a series of books
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that honors traditional values, celebrates families, and simply promotes godly values and morals. This
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is the box that I picked up. It's one of their um I think it's a saga one is what it's called. I picked
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it up at a homeschool convention and there I've got a few more books in here that came from the
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subscription but originally it came with 10 books that were in their first collection. It came with
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this big poster of the island that all the characters live on, Freedom Island, and I don't
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have it here but it also came with an activity book, a puzzle, and some other things. I think it
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actually comes with much more now if you order it on their website. So I will just show you a couple
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of the books so you can get a feel for them. Blame, Fame of Blame, and The Raft of Shame. We've got
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More Than Spots and Stripes, Paws Off My Cannon, Son of Truth, we have Because You're My Family
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Dawn of the Brave, Puddin' Pirates and the Problem with Power. We really like there's a few more in
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here uh let's see I must have taken them out of here somewhere. Fiona's Fantastical Fort and there's
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one called Elephants Are Not Birds. We really liked that one um I'm not seeing it in my box. We must
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have it out still on the shelf somewhere but one of the cool things about these books is all of
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them came with like a little sticker so you could stick them on your big poster when you were finished
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reading because all the different characters have their little spot on the island. In the back of
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the books they have basically resources for parents. So there's usually a little introduction
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some of them have video content, there's a little QR code where you can scan to watch a video about
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whatever the topic of the book is about, and then there's some different games in here that you can
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play with your kids. So whatever the book is kind of trying to teach or whatever lesson it's trying
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to instill there are some games and discussion questions to really drive that home. So these are
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a really great resource to add to your read aloud collection. If you want a new book every month I
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think the subscription is less than $20 but you can go check out their website and browse everything
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that they have. I would say maybe ages 4 to 12 are what these are recommended for. Okay last year at
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a homeschool convention I also picked up this boxed set and my kids really liked these books
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as well. This is the Invisible Tales series and they are written by a man who worked at Disney
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and worked on movies like The Lion King, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, those types of movies as a
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concept illustrator. We met with him and got to talk with him and my husband really liked hearing
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that he worked on one of the Star Wars episodes that he was inspiring to talk to because he began
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his career with the goal of winning an Oscar but ultimately realized that it was much more important
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to serve Christ and that his talents were simply not meant for the big Hollywood dream but for
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winning souls to Christ. So he left that job which I think is amazing and founded his company where he
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writes books like these to promote Christian values. These books are unique because they
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tell of common bible accounts from the viewpoint of the animals that were there which is really
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kind of different. So for example, Jordan's Guest, this book right here, this is a book told from the
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perspective of the donkey that Christ rides on as he enters Jerusalem. Let's see, The Fish with No
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Tail, so this is a story you know kind of alluding to Jonah and the big fish and then the royal feast
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is a story talking kind of from the perspective of the lions that were in the den with Daniel
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Now these books are not going to be devotional type books. They don't even include scripture
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verses or anything like that. They simply are stories told from animals perspectives surrounding
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biblical events. So if your kids like Disney movies, they like the animal movies, they might
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really enjoy these books and the illustrations. They were fun to read and I don't know it was an
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interesting take on things um you know taking the perspective of the animals that went through some
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of those parts of history. All right the last non-curriculum specific book that I will mention
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is this one that we are reading through, Heaven for Kids by Randy Alcorn. I heard about this book
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on a radio show that I listened to and it's been really interesting to read through with my kids
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It is written in short question and answer format and we usually read this one in the evening before
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bed. I think it's really good to teach our kids what the Bible says about heaven, the new earth
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what we can know about what living with Jesus will be like because these are questions that
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kids have big questions. They're questions that I have and I didn't always know how to answer and
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this book gives us a good framework of things to kind of talk through. So some of the chapters in
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here are what or why should we look forward to heaven? What can we know about heaven after we die
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Then what? How will we relate to God in heaven? What is the new earth? What will it be like? Who rules
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What will our lives in heaven be like? Who will we hang out with in heaven? Will animals live on the
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new earth? What will we do in heaven? How can we know we're going to heaven? And the conclusion
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the great story that goes on forever. And then there are questions in each of those chapters
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about that topic with answers that are based on scripture and it's written in a way that kids can
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really understand it. There is also an adult book that the author wrote called heaven but I have not
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read that one yet but I definitely recommend this book. Okay let's move on to talk about a couple of
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curriculum specific books we are reading this year and have read this year. I just have a couple of
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them. The first thing I'll share is kingdom tales. We've loved this book so much. Our curriculum
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included it. It's actually a trilogy but this book here includes all three books in one. The three
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books are tales of the kingdom, tales of the resistance, and tales of the restoration. Kingdom
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tales is an allegory teaching about Jesus and his kingdom in a really interesting way but if you
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don't like allegories you might not like this but we've had some great discussions after reading
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I highly recommend grabbing the discussion guide if you purchase the trilogy. This version has
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discussion questions in here which was very helpful but we've loved reading this book this
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year. This year we have also really loved reading missionary stories which we have not done um very
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much prior to this year but there is a big focus on missionary tales in our exploring countries and
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cultures curriculum so we've kind of studied different missionaries who've been to the places
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around the world that we're learning about. So these are the books that came with our curriculum. I'm sure you've probably seen them or similar books. I definitely recommend them. Our favorite
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so far has been Nate Saint and we are just about done with Amy Carmichael. We still need to read a
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couple of the others but I'm really glad that we were introduced to these in our curriculum this
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year. It has been powerful to read about different people who truly live their lives for the Lord and
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made big impacts on history and honestly eternity. Last but not least these are kind of fun books and
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I don't have copies of them because I purchased kindle editions but I linked to them in my amazon
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list. They are books by Ed Dunlop. One of them we read is called Escape to Lichtenstein or Lichtenstein
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and the other was the first book of the Sherlock Jones series. These books were recommendations
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from our BJU Press history curriculum. They will sometimes recommend books that go along with what
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we are learning about in history at the time and my kids really like these. They are fiction books
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Escape to Lichtenstein is a historical fiction book. It's set in Europe during World War II
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and Sherlock Jones is a series. The assassination plot was the first one that we read and it's about
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kids who stumble upon a plot to get rid of the governor. We read this one when we were covering
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the JFK time period in our history lessons. So just fun books to read. Ed Dunlop is a Christian
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author and I really enjoy the Christian themes and the good role models his characters are. So
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definitely check out his books if you are looking for something for your kids to read
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or great read-alouds for your family. Okay that's it. If you made it this far thank you for watching
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Reading aloud to my family has been such a such a blessing these past few years for all of us and I
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hope this gave you maybe some ideas of books you want to try or even inspired you to start reading
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aloud to your kids if you don't do much of that already. Please hit that thumbs up button if you
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enjoyed watching and don't forget to check out those links in the description below both for the
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playlist and for my Amazon shop where I made a list of all the books that I mentioned today
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Let me know if you have any questions and please share in the comments because I want to know what
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is your favorite book that you have read aloud to your kids. I would love some more to add to
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my list. Thanks so much for watching. I will see you next time
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you
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