When my children were younger we loved finding new books to read. It was often a big part of the discussions that we would have when we were visiting with other homeschoolers. It seemed we were all on the look-out for good books that we could read with our children and one of the resources many of us used to find new books was Joan Torkildson’s column in Home Education Magazine, So Many Books. Reading the column was like talking to a friend who shared why she or her kids loved a book.

Reading her columns again has been a walk down memory lane as I have checked to see if the books I’ve listed are still in print. I’ve listed some of them below along with links to her original column and some occasional snippets from her reviews. I hope your family enjoys each of her recommended books as much as we did!

I distinctly recall borrowing and reading Steven Kellog’s I Was Born About 10,000 Years Ago after reading Joan’s review in her July-August 1997 column. She wrote:

No one retells a tall tale with more panache than Steven Kellogg. In this one, which was adapted from a nineteenth-century American folk song, multiple narrators boldly take credit for some of the most outrageous claims in history. One by one, they brag about having seen King Pharoah’s daughter fish Moses out of the water, of seeing Adam and Eve being banished from the Garden of Eden, of showing Columbus the way to the New World, of secretly marrying Queen Elizabeth in Milwaukee, even of playing hopscotch with spacemen on the moon (with plans to visit Saturn). All of these outlandish boasts are embellished with Kellogg’s own verse and typically exuberant illustrations.

In that same column she reviewed A Journey to the New World: The Diary of Remember Patience Whipplle, the first book in the Dear America Series, A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder, by Walter Wick and Lives of the Athletes: Thrills, Spills(and What the Neighbors Thought.)

In her January-February 1998 So Many Books column, Joan Torkildson reviewed:

• Cracked Corn and Snow Ice Cream A Family Almanac, by Nancy Willard
  Joan writes this about the book: Perfect for browsing during long, wintery afternoons (even if you don’t happen to live in the Midwest), the almanac is both an engrossing read and a poignant reminder of a quieter, less complicated time not so very long ago.
  
• I Wonder Why Trees Have Leaves and Other Questions About Plants (Kingfisher books by various authors)
  The books are an eclectic mix of bold, easy-to-read type, beautifully realistic illustrations, and humorous cartoon-like drawings. Questions range from the sensible (“Why do leaves change color in the fall?”) to the quirky (“Which bird sniffs all night?”).
  
• The Kingfisher Young People’s Atlas of the World
  Extensively indexed, the book also includes detailed charts of facts and figures for each continent.
  
• I Saw a Purple Cow by Ann Cole, Carolyn Haas, Faith Bushnell, and Betty Weinberger
  The emphasis here is on the simple and homemade, a feature that will no doubt be appreciated by budget-minded homeschooling families. Most of the activities in the book use recycled or common household items, such as cardboard boxes and tubes, egg cartons, newspapers and magazines, cans and jar lids, old clothes and jewelry, crayons, and watercolors. Have plenty of white glue and tape on hand.
  
• The Best of Shakespeare: Retellings of 10 Classic Plays E. Nesbit

In the So Many Books March-April 1997 Column, Joan wrote this about

• With Needle and Thread: A Book About Quilts , by Raymond Bial, With Needle and Thread would make a nice addition to a unit study on quiltmaking, or could simply add depth and background to a family quiltmaking project. Ambitious types might try researching a few of the hundreds of colorful names (Broken Dishes, Chinese Coins, Drunkard’s Path, Trip Around the World) to uncover more of the history of this gentle “art within.

In this column she also reviewed

• The Shelter of Each Other: Rebuilding Our Families
• Mapping a Changing World
• My Brother Sam Is Dead

Here is a list of other books that she recommended via her column:

• Pass the Peas Please
• Crinkleroot’s Nature Almanac
• Grandfather’s Christmas Tree
• Amelia Erhart, Young Air Pioneer

I’ve linked many of the books to sites where you can purchase them, whether brand-new or well-used, but don’t forget to see if you can borrow them from your local public library first!

If a man is at once acquainted with the geometric foundation of things and with their festal splendor, his poetry is exact and his arithmetic musical. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Home education allows the individual who is not a fan of math to see that the subject goes far beyond the math text book. There are so many different ways to study it and a variety of hands on resources to explore it. Below you will find some great math articles and resources.

Articles

Measuring Up – Becky Rupp

Everything, in homeschooling, connects; sometimes home education has a lot in common with “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon.” You know how it goes: you’re reading Aesop’s “The Grasshopper and the Ants” and somebody asks how grasshoppers are different from crickets; and in no time at all you’ve wandered off into how to determine the temperature by timing the rate of cricket chirps and then they decide to read The Cricket in Times Square and then somebody wants to know how the New York City subway works and then… You all know what I mean. A case in point around here was the study of measurement.

Starting in kindergarten or so, according to the math manuals, kids should be encouraged to investigate the science and mathematics of measurement in active hands-on fashion, comparing and contrasting the lengths, heights, weights, areas, and volumes of various objects using nonstandard (how many pencils long is the kitchen table?) and standard (inches, feet, yards, centimeters, meters) measures. My initial forays into this flopped: our kids, no matter how charmingly encouraged, showed little interest in determining how many paper clips could be lined up end to end across a desk top or how many teaspoons it took to equal the length of the piano bench.

Time Travel with a Teaspoon Archaeology For Kids Rebecca Rupp

A pair of bimonthly science magazines for upper-elementary through high-school students from New World Publishers. Atom is targeted at readers aged 9-12; Cogniz is aimed at teenagers. Each magazine issue contains several color-illustrated feature articles on a wide range of scientific and mathematical topics.

Past features in Atom, for example, have covered lightning, whales, infinite numbers, and the geology of the Grand Canyon. Regular columns include “Space Scoop,” accounts of recent astronomical events and explorations; “Science Reporter,” which includes interviews with scientists and researchers; and “Water World,” which covers oceanographic studies and research updates.

Sample feature articles in Cogniz have centered around the biology of elephants, the laws of gravity, and the geometry of the Eiffel Tower. Each issue also includes “Chat,” a column of interviews with working scientists; “Space Beat,” on astronomical phenomena and space missions; “Earth Life,” on all aspects of life on Earth; and “Every Body,” on human health and physiology. Both magazines also contain science news, book and software reviews, web site recommendations, and science-related puzzles, problems, and exercises.

User Friendly Homeschooling Records – Larry and Susan Kaseman

* Children playing with blocks or legos are learning arithmetic and geometry as they discover from direct experience how various shapes fit together, how smaller units can be added together to form larger ones, how numbers as represented by blocks relate to each other, and other important principles.

Revelations of a Homeschooling Mom – Carol Wanagel

Math is one thing that’s still handled in a more-or-less traditional way, I’m not sure why. Justified or not, I insist that Jonah do algebra before he goes off to finish his latest graphics animation, and Luke may have to figure out negative exponents before he goes upstairs to play drums. They all have other texts in their school book slots too, and sometimes they actually read them. I’ve seen Jocelyn read quite a bit of an American history source book before going off to do gymnastics and Jen has been known to do stuff in a grammar workbook before disappearing into the woods with Jill to work on their fort or invent a new game.

All Aboard! – Rebecca Rupp

In “Dino Math Action,” players draw The 36 “Action Number” cards after moving their dinosaurs, and follow the instructions. “Your red dinosaur skips ahead 2 thousands.” “Your ones dinosaur has a thorn in its foot. Hobble back 2 spaces for help.” And in the more challenging “Prehistoric Problem-Solving,” players draw The 36 “Problem-Solving Cards” after moving their dinos and tackle the listed problem. “A flying dinosaur flew 520 kilometers last week and 603 kilometers this week. How far did it fly altogether? Move that many.” “Archaeologists must ship 25 tons of dinosaur bones to the museum. If each truck can haul 2 tons, how many trucks do they need? Move ahead that many.”

My Best Math Puzzles

Author/mathematician Theoni Pappas – of “The Children’s Mathematics Calendar” – and her mathematical cat, Penrose, have devised this illustrated 52-card deck of “My Best Math Puzzles” for mathematicians aged 12 (or so) and up. Puzzles, which vary from the mildly tricky to the mindboggling brain-buster, include logic problems, number puzzles, optical illusions, and geometry puzzles. Answers are included on a separate little paper booklet; we lost ours, which adds considerably to the challenge. The cards also work as conventional playing cards; if mathematically exhausted, you can play rummy with them.

“My Best Math Puzzles” is also available as a double deck of 104 different puzzles.

So What Do You Do? by Lisa Bugg

By homeschooling my daughters, I am giving them room to develop into young women who do not know that math and science are still considered boy subjects. I have daughters who, during their young lives, are completely unaware of what it means to be graded and judged on what they wear. They think nothing of taking months to master a skill or, conversely, figuring something out in an afternoon.

No Fear!, by Jeanne Mills

According to our favorite math text, Dr. John Paulos hated math as a kid but is now a widely respected mathematics professor. He admits he learned to love mathematics by browsing through books in the library. Though my son doesn’t know it yet, he is learning what Dr. Paulos already knows: “Doing mathematics depends on computational skill no more than writing novels does on typing skills.” My son is also learning he doesn’t have to be afraid. He’s a homeschooler now. He’s free to learn in his own way at a safe pace. Learning is now his adventure, not his fear. Jeanne Mills lives in PA with her family.

Resources
Closer Look: Math

APlusMath

Geometry Web Page

Living Math

Math Study Guides from Sparknotes

S.O.S. MATHematics

S.O.S. Math offers free math review material from Algebra to Differential Equations!

The ArithmAttack
How many computer-generated arithmetic problems can you answer in 60 seconds?

HEM Back Issues: Six Issue Pack on Math & Science $20.00 postpaid “Math articles include: learning math through construction, unschooling math, math anxiety, understanding math through language, measurement, algebra, money and business, learning math with games.”

For homeschooling families, the library can be one of the most valuable resources available. Mark Hegener, publisher of Home Education Magazine, has said for many years that all one needs to homeschool successfully is “love and a library card.” Libraries offer so much for families: Friendly, helpful staff members, reference materials, audiobook recordings, videos and DVDs, computers to use free, story hours, meeting spaces, and that never-ending supply of books!

To learn more about the wonderful resources and support for homeschooling available at your local public library, and for ideas about how you can become more involved in supporting homeschooling through your community library, check out these helpful articles and links to more information about libraries.

• Homeschool Resource Center in a Public Library, by Kathy Wentz

“For many years now I have held a vision of the library of the future. This library would be a public learning center. It would do more than lend out materials. It would be far more than a school. It would be similar to the private Homeschool Resource Centers that are cropping up in areas, but it would not require a paid membership to use. It would be a community-based learning Mecca!”

• Loving the Library, by Rebecca Rupp

“Of all possible homeschooling resources – after, of course, such pipe-dream unobtainables as unlimited time and money – next-best is a library card. Kids vary certainly, but there’s no doubt, as Neil Postman said, that a magnificent education can be obtained solely through reading; and even for the reading-resistant, the library has a lot to offer.”

• Books About Homeschooling and Libraries

Group discussion about books which describe and further the interaction between public libraries and homeschooling families and supporters. Also leads into introductions from listmembers interested in the working relationship between homeschoolers and librarians.

• How to Choose Books

Beginning of a group discussion about helping your children select books, includes this advice from librarian David Brostrom: “What I would recommend is to go to your public library’s reference/information desk where you can ask for the Librarian who helps with ‘Reader’s Advisory’ things. Make sure to let them/him/her know that you have a concern about explicit language, etc.”

• Public Libraries and Homeschool Families

Group discussion beginning with the question: ” I’m a children’s librarian with an interest in providing the best service possible for our homeschool families. What would you like to see your public library provide and/or what are some things that libraries have done that you have found especially interesting, helpful, exciting etc.?

• Presenting a Library Workshop

Group discussion beginning with the question: “What are you looking for in the way of help from your local library? What services do you use, what services would you like to see available? Does your library subscribe to any homeschooling magazines? Do they have a good assortment of books on homeschooling?”

• The Internet Public Library

The Internet Public Library (IPL) is a public service organization and learning/teaching environment founded at the University of Michigan School of Information and hosted by Drexel University’s College of Information Science & Technology. We will provide library services to Internet users. Activities include: finding, evaluating, selecting, organizing, describing, and creating information resources; and direct assistance to individuals.

• The Library of Congress

The Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution and serves as the research arm of Congress. It is also the largest library in the world, with more than 130 million items on approximately 530 miles of bookshelves. The collections include more than 29 million books and other printed materials, 2.7 million recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps, and 58 million manuscripts.

• Los Angeles Public Library

Online site of the Los Angeles public library.

• New York Public Library

Online site of the New York public library.

• The Online Books Page

Listing over 25,000 free books on the Web.

• Bartleby: Great Books Online

Books online to read free. The preeminent Internet publisher of literature, reference and verse providing students, researchers and the intellectually curious with unlimited access to books and information on the web, free of charge.

• The Harvard Classics

Books online. The most comprehensive and well-researched anthology of all time comprises both the 50-volume ’5-foot shelf of books and the the 20-volume Shelf of Fiction. Together they cover every major literary figure, philosopher, religion, folklore and historical subject through the twentieth century.

• Children’s Storybooks Online

Illustrated children’s stories for kids of all ages, available to read online free. Also riddle and maze books, coloring books, talking books, and more!