March 11, 2009

Boys on a Budget



I have 2 readers in my house now, Deklyn who is going to be 8 and Austin who is 6 1/2 yrs. Both of them LOVE to read.



On a surprise trip my husband took me on to Chicago for our Anniversary in February, we actually had time to go to a bookstore. Which we used to do a lot when we were dating and before kids.



We talked about how we wished that there was some type of story books that was for boys that they could read that incorporated History and other information. So they could read the story and get into it, and still be learning useful information. We searched through the kids books, and we found Magic Tree House books. These are stories about "Jack and Annie" and their adventures. All of them are informative, and the thing that really sealed the deal for us was that these stories came with "Research Guides". So "Tonight on the Titanic" comes also with a Research Guide book that has a lot of additional information on the Titanic. These are generally for kids reading on a 1st-3rd grade level. Each book has a different reading level.



I am adding this to my "Boys on a Budget" link because, the books cost around $2.99 ea. The Research Guides run a little more at around $4.99. I do not know if the woman who writes the books is a Christian, so you may want to preview some of the books before your child reads them. Ones like the Dinosaur book, just because I don't know if it is a "millions and millions of years ago" book, or not. But so far my boys have read quite a few through their library at school. Deklyn can read one in about 2 days, if we let him. And he absorbs the info too.



And these are a "Boys on a Budget" idea too because they can be read time and time again, by child after child. They can be used as supplemental reading for Home school and for public school. And their research guides make it easy to answer questions about the civil war or about tornadoes and weather.



DO your boys enjoy reading? What do they read that you would recommend to other mothers of boys?

4 comments:

carrie said...

Zach loves these books!!! we ahve multiples of them that i buy as i find them at garage sales or goodwill. they are great little books for your little bookworms.

Megan said...

My kids like these books too, although we don't have many. They're into Star Wars books now.
8yr old girl &10 yr old boy

We use Sonlight readers, they have great books all picked for us! They like most of those too!

Only problem is I wouldn't say my kids "love" reading...how to you get them to love it???

Mominin said...

My oldest loved these books, too. I bought them in sets off of ebay, for even greater savings!

Elizabeth said...

My boys loved Billy and Blaze books when they were just reading, and as they got a tad older, they like the Boxcar children, Childhood of Famous Americans, Encyclopedia Brown. I want to check out the ones you're talking about. Would they be available at the library? My oldest read insect field guides now, and my 9 year old devours books like Johnny Tremain (he's a history buff). They love the Chronicles of Narnia.