2009/2010 Plans: Literature & Read Alouds

Having titles for reading aloud allows me a little more freedom in composing our literature list. This year, I've placed just four on it.

Sing Down the Moon, O'Dell.
The Hobbit, Tolkien.
Where the Red Fern Grows, Rawls.
The Hunt for Red October, Clancy.

Our literature list is much longer. We'll study these to varying degrees of depth. I have four different goals for her literature study, so the books vary widely. On one hand, I want to challenge her current reading level and have her progress. Secondly, though, I want to expose her to classic good books, many of which fall below her current reading level. Third, I want to expand on her history study with good historical fiction. Finally, I want to spend time studying some of these works in a more in-depth fashion. She's not going to be writing a high school level essay comparing and contrasting Twenty and Ten and Number the Stars, but I certainly think we can have a great discussion about the two and the time period that they both depict.

Little Women
Caddie Woodlawn and Magical Melons
Mysteries of Sherlock Holmes
Adventures of Tom Sawyer
Little House in the Big Woods, Little House on the Prairie, Farmer Boy, On the Banks of Plum Creek, By the Shores of Silver Lake, The Long Winter, Little Town on the Prairie, These Happy Golden Years, and The First Four Years
Gone Away Lake
Heidi
Pinocchio
Around the World in Eighty Days
The Terrible Wave
All of a Kind Family
The Secret Garden
all of the Peter Rabbit stories
The Red Fairy Book
Peter Pan
Cheaper By the Dozen
Hero Over Here
The Enchanted Castle
A Christmas Carol
Chronicles of Narnia
Thimble Summer
A Letter to Mrs. Roosevelt
Out of the Dust
The War of the Worlds
Twenty and Ten
Number the Stars
Code Talker
In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson
The Twenty-One Balloons
Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot
Miracles on Maple Hill
Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats
The Cricket in Times Square
Charlotte's Web
The Wall
A Year Down Yonder
Plain Girl
From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Maniac Magee
The Wind in the Willows
Poetry, including The Oxford Illustrated Book of American Children's Poems, Walter de la Mare, Carl Sandburg, and Robert Frost.

Over the summer, she's going to read Home Price, The Perilous Road, and a simplified version of Treasure Island. I have the suspicion that the full Treasure Island would intimidate her, so I want her familiar with the story; we'll likely tackle it in fifth grade.

It's a really long, full literature list, and as I said, for some books, the point is merely exposure, but if I feel like she's just reading and not getting anything out of it, we'll cut some books. On the other hand, she reads quickly.