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Hello,

I have just begun homeschooling this week. I am doing LHFHG for Kindergarten (my son turned five just last week), and so far we are really enjoying most of it. Carrie, you have done a great job creating this curriculum and I thank you for that.

I know it has only been a couple of days, but I was wondering... does anybody else's children not seem to interested in the storytime selection? I am reading the Reddy Fox book as instructed, but both days my son just seems sort of bored with it. He DOES listen, but he is not very excited about the story.

It is funny because I thought he would love the storytime because we read at least six books every day, visit the library regularly and he has always had such a love for our reading time. I am even trying to make the story sound more exciting by being more animated when I read to him. It didn't seem to do much.

I am finding that he LOVES the math, the Bible verse CD & activities to learn the verse, and devotional time. Those are by far his favorites so far. We have even moved quite a bit faster in the last couple of days with our math. He was in pre-school last year and so he knows how to write his numbers quite well up to twenty. Plus, he just keeps wanting to do more! I had to stop him today, but he requested that he see the next page in his math book so that he would know what he gets to do tomorrow.

Anyway, if anyone has suggestions on how to make the storytime more exciting for him, I sure would appreciate it. If it just doesn't seem to work after a couple of weeks, I may think about picking some other chapter books with characters that I can ask him questions about. Do you think that would be a good idea?

Thanks so much and everybody have a wonderful day!!! We are off to do our Art now! My son is going to LOVE that too!!!

It sounds like you're off to a good start with LHFHG! That's so cute your ds had to peek at the next page. It took my ds about a month to get into the Thorton Burgess books. He just wasn't listening well. The HOD plans helped to draw him out though, and by the time we began the second Burgess book he was hooked.

I remember him saying, "Hey, some of the same characters are in this book too!" He'd begun to say things like, "Oh there's that Reddy Fox again, he's soooo sly. I bet he's up to no good, mom!" This brings me to my second thing I discovered about doing the Thorton Burgess books - they do wonders to build comprehension because they are centered around the same set of characters, though each book focuses on a different character. This helped my dc learn to predict what would happen next, learn character study, and so many other things they wouldn't have learned had we been switching books every month.

I'd stick with it, so he can improve his listening and comprehension skills. My son who took a month to warm up to them now has asked for the complete set to read in his room on his own (and has talked me into getting the rest of them as well ). So, I just want to encourage you that with time I think your son will learn to enjoy them and benefit much from them as well.

In Christ,
Julie

i agree with Julie. i think it just takes some time getting used to listening. Once he got in a routine, my son couldn't wait to hear what happened next! My son will be 6 in October. we are finishing up LHFHG basics in a couple months. My son noticed how some of the same characters were in the other books. I have to say Reddy Fox was one of my favorites!
I plan on reading more of the character books after we finish the Burgess books in LHFHG. Stick with it! i am sure he will enjoy them.
Jenn D.

Burgess books are wonderful! My husband reads them to his first grade class every year. They are short but well written and allow the child to slowly build their attention span. By the end of LHFHG, my son had fallen in love with Burgess. We had to continue on reading many others and he even re-reads them on his own now.

I'd keep plugging along. If you continue to struggle a bit with it, why not try shifting it to a different time of day and see if that helps.

okay, i may be the voice of dissent here, but i will speak up. i love the books, as do both my 3 yo and 5 yo. but my opinion is this: while i think they might take some getting used to, if, after several reading sessions, he still does not like them, i think i would read him something else. the point is to teach your child to LOVE books. be sure whatever you replace them with (if you have to do such) is true children's literature and not "twaddle". i would bet that your dc will love the Burgess books eventually - but i would be concerned about hindering his love of being read to during this time. it strikes fear in my heart to think of my children dreading storytime -if that were ever the case in my house, i would ditch what i as reading immediately. now, i think the Burgess books are worthwhile enough to try again at some point if he doesn't take to them right now. you could read him Charlotte's Web for example and then when it is over, try Reddy Fox again. Or maybe he just still likes picture books - that is okay. as long as he learns that books are fun, exciting, and worthwhile, you will have given him an irreplaceable gift. and i believe that, while the Burgess books are a great choice, there are many other good books that can just as easily be used to teach him these things.

just .02.

I just wanted to thank everyone who responded to my thread. I am definitely going to continue with the books right now and see if my son becomes more interested in them. He is having to get used to them not really having any pictures. I think he is a visual child and so not seeing pictures to go with the story right now is a bit confusing.

However, if I do see that he is just not coming around with these particular books, I will choose something else. I researched many chapter books that I feel would really be great for him in the future. These books are geared for kindergarten and first grade, so they would be really wonderful. They also have characters in them so that I could create questions to make sure that my son is following the story, listening well, and enjoying them.

Today, we will move to chapter 3 in Reddy Fox and I hope to see more interest in it today. I am a HUGE advocate of children loving books and reading. I have read to my son since he was a little baby and we continue to this day. I did the same with my daughter and she is now sixteen and LOVES reading. I think it has helped her excel in school as well. I want the same for my son.

Thank you again for all the responses. I look forward to seeing what progresses over the next two weeks with these books. Hopefully, I will see that little spark in my son's eye when we are reading them very soon. Everyone have a wonderful day!

Maybe that particular books just doesn't interest him. I am pretty sure, for read alouds, you are at liberty to choose any book from that genre that you want. I know that when I was choosing the Bigger and Beyond programs, I had 3 choices (history books, boy books, and girl books) and I chose a mix of the three actually (some of the girl books are not "girl only" books )

Also, could it be the lack of pictures? Sometimes, little fellas have a hard time transitioning from listening and looking to JUST listening. In that case, just give him some time.

We started this week and my 5 year old isn't thrilled about storytime. He does enjoy his books but the Burgess books don't have colorful pictures and I believe that is showing him disintress in the book. My 4 year old loves the books but she also loves Charlotte's Web. I kid you not she loves any books but back to my son. He likes pictures so this is new to him. He kept looking for pictures besides the few that there are. I am going to stick with the series and he is just going to have to learn to listen and use his imangination with stories with little to no pictures. He will get his Transformers and Dieago books at bedtime. BTW, I knew when I started this program that storytime was going to be a bit of a struggle. Today I had him draw a picture from the chapter and tel me a sentence about the picture. He copied what I wrote and this seemed to help a little with telling of what happened in the chapters.

Hey! I had posted a few days ago about how my daughter was having a little trouble with the history reading and the storytime. We started on Monday Aug. 3rd. We have decided to stick with this, and just in a weeks time, she is remembering a little more of the story each day. So, I think that it is going to work, it just may take a little time.

Also, I decided to search the internet for some coloring pages to maybe go along with the readings and maybe that would help and I found two books: Barnes and Noble has a Meet Peter Cottontail coloring book with all of the Thornton Burgess characters in it for like $2.95 and the other one is the History for Little Pilgrims coloring book at Christianbook.com for $3.99. I am going to photocopy the pictures so that I can use them again with my son.

Hope this helps,
Christy

Hi!

I know in the time that I've been using HOD (the last year and a half) that I've seen this come up several times. And, any of the moms that stuck with it found that they and their children loved the Burgess books! Here's one of these threads where the mom came back and shared how much her son loved storytime 4 months later.
viewtopic.php?f=6&t=126

And here's another idea that was on the board last year. Some of the moms found the Burgess characters online and printed them out so the story could be more visual. Maybe this thread could help some of you looking for something like that.viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2673

I'm personally looking forward to getting started with LHFHG next week!
Kathleen

If your child is a very visual child then the lack of pictures may be the problem. You can photocopy the picture of Reddy from the cover or one of the illustrations, laminate and tape him to a popsicle stick. Then yoru son can "act out" along with the story (i.e. make his little Reddy run back and forth when Reddy in the story is running on the bridge etc) I am a very visual person and so are my kids, so little helps like that can go along way toward retention.

ahngele wrote:If your child is a very visual child then the lack of pictures may be the problem. You can photocopy the picture of Reddy from the cover or one of the illustrations, laminate and tape him to a popsicle stick. Then yoru son can "act out" along with the story (i.e. make his little Reddy run back and forth when Reddy in the story is running on the bridge etc) I am a very visual person and so are my kids, so little helps like that can go along way toward retention.

what a great idea!!

Also, thanks to Christy for finding the coloring book with Burgess characters - my dc will love this!

ahngele wrote:If your child is a very visual child then the lack of pictures may be the problem. You can photocopy the picture of Reddy from the cover or one of the illustrations, laminate and tape him to a popsicle stick. Then yoru son can "act out" along with the story (i.e. make his little Reddy run back and forth when Reddy in the story is running on the bridge etc) I am a very visual person and so are my kids, so little helps like that can go along way toward retention.

I love this idea! You could even put a magnet on the back and then as he hears the character's name mentioned he could put them up on the fridge or a magnet board. I think this, along with the coloring pages, should really capture his interest. Then once he's drawn into the story you could drop the extras little by little.
Leah