Parenting Sweet Spot

I'm never going to be great at homeschooling. I'm used to spending my days on my own these days rather than having someone (or three people) constantly asking me questions or saying me my name as they think it's gone too quiet....

But I have landed on a good idea, after lunch we have a half quiet reading time now the girls can read in their heads. The boy can either play or I'll read to him one of his animal reference books, but it's been a great bit of our day.

 Here I'm reading an old book "The Wheel Wrights Shop", my eldest is reading about different breeds of chickens and my middlest is reading Secret Seven. 

Bliss! 

George's Marvellous Medicine

I was dealing with a very teary little boy yesterday morning, and it took me about an hour to even get him dressed! So I took some time to snuggle up in bed with all three kids and read some more of George's Marvellous Medicine by Roald Dahl. 

All three are totally transfixed by it, and my daughters kept laughing at his descriptions of the mean old grandma in the book. My eldest was even keen to have it read to her instead of telly time. 

I'd read somewhere that he makes a master story teller out of all of us, and I certainly feel that's true.

You can't help but do funny voices and get caught up in the moment, my voice was hoarse afterwards!

Such a fun book to read aloud! One of the thing I was so excited about when we decided to start a family was that I was going to have children to read to and make fall in love with books like I have.

What's your favourite book to read out loud to children?

Fathers Reading Every Day

There's always a lot of "Dad Slamming" on the internet and social media which reinforces outdated stereotypes, there is also a lot of positive stuff out there. 

One I stumbled across was this campaign to get fathers reading to their children everyday and I thought it was a great idea.

I was always read to everyday as a child, a bedtime story is an essential part of the day when you're growing up, but if you're not brought up with that then you don't realise how important it is. Five minutes spent reading a story each night is shown to have a huge impact on how children learn to read and I should imagine it encourages a love of books that will roll on into adulthood. 

Here's what their website says about their campaign:

Fathers Reading Every Day is a really simple programme that encourages dads to read with their children at home. It changes lives. Its effects are most powerful among children from disadvantaged backgrounds – and it’s brilliant with boys especially.

We’ve set ourselves the goal of bringing FRED to 200 schools and children’s centres, reaching over 6,000 children, this year. We’ve already trained schools in London, Greater Manchester, Wolverhampton, Bradford and Rochdale. By telling your local school about FRED, donating in honour of Father’s Day (19 June 2016) and sharing a photo of yourself or a much-loved dad reading, using the hashtag #DadsReading, you could help us reach even more.

Too many kids lack a supportive learning environment at home – and getting dads reading is a vital part of changing that. Children whose dads read to them from an early age, do better…and FRED has been shown to have a huge impact on reading, writing and even maths. In fact, researchers found that children who took part in FRED were four times as likely as those who did not, to make greater-than-expected progress in reading!

We love reading in our household and if I could get away with just reading one book a day to my children it would be a miracle! We often say that we know when a guest has "made it" in our house when the girls bring them a story they want reading.

My favourite story to read the children. I know it off by heart from reading it hundreds of times but I still love it.
"It was late at night and time for bed, the clock was ticking when somebody said..."

I think encouraging more people to read stories to children in this age frequently filled with tablets and smart phone is a great idea.

What's your favourite bedtime story?