Fitting books to Beyond Storytime schedule

[mamaduke]

Just wondering if other HODies space out the pages of their Beyond storytime book to fit perfectly with the schedule or if you go with natural breaks like chapters and have time left over. We just finished Squanto for our biography and we went by chapters which was 14 but there are 6 more days of biography. I thought about trying to read another biography but that is not very long for a whole book.

I'm wondering about just filling the time left with outloud reading in other pilgrim/thanksgiving/Jamestown/Plymouth books I got from the library, even if they are not biographies. But that doesn't necessarily help ds7 answer the biography questions/discussion included in the plans each day. I could just ask about the main character of whatever it is we're reading..... I also thought about reading another Squanto book we had on hand. It is similar in size to the recommended one. We would have to perhaps read 2 chapters a day. Not a bid deal. But would be repetition. I looked for the Billingsworth, out of print, followup book by Bulla, but couldn't find in at our local library.

This is our first genre so I'm figuring out how this will work in the weeks ahead. I know the guide said to pace for the remaining days, but that looked like too much work to figure out. And I really liked just reading a chapter a day. Simple. Maybe counting pages and dividing is the better way to end up on schedule .........

[Tree House Academy]

I space out my books by pages per day. I just take the total, divide it by 20, and do my best to read that number of pages each day.

[jenntracy]

i try to do what tree house does. so far i have miscalculated with the first two books we have read.. but i just make sure that in the last 5 days we will finish. Sometimes it is hard because the right amount of pages isn't necessarily a good place to stop in the book. so sometimes we read more and other times we read less.
Jenn D.

[mamaduke]

Thank you for responding. So, what have you done with your remaining days on Storytime when you've miss calculated?

[MomtoJGJE]

I get 20 little post-it tabs. I put one at each chapter. Then however many days worth of reading is left (the rest of the tabs), I go through the chapters and find easy breaks and put the tabs there. Occasionally I'll have to break at an odd spot, but not too often doing it this way.

[mamaduke]

Now that's a good idea! I think I'll try it!!

Love you creative mommy teachers

[Tree House Academy]

If I get an uneven number when I divide (like 19.6 pgs per day), then I usually go with 19 per day for the first 15 days. For the last 15 days, I recalculate the number of pages needed each day by subtracting the total number of pages from the page we are on. Sometimes I have to adjust the number of pages up or down from the original total, but it all works out. Only one time did we finish a book early and it was only by one day...so I called it a "Storytime free day!" LOL

[my3sons]

We do the same thing as Rebecca - it just seems to work well. I put a sticky note in the book that says about how many pages to read each day. Ours right now says 8-10 pages. This gives me a little leeway, but keeps me on track. I pay close attention to the reminders in the plans that say you have "15 days left of reading" and then "10 days left" and then "5 days left". That helps me always be able to finish on time. Great ideas in this thread already!

In Christ,
Julie