No Children, No Pets

Our sleep schedule has been off for a few weeks now with the kids' evening activities and other commitments. Throw in a time change with Daylight Saving ending and we are all feeling more tired than usual.

I fell asleep early last night and for me, that usually means waking up in the wee hours of the night and not being able to get back to sleep, which is the case now as I write this.

I foresee naps in our future tomorrow, er later today.

Since both kids started school, I have started a nap time again especially on days when we have evening activities.  I do not want to be critical of public school - I am a product of public school, but when I was in Kindergarten, it was only half a day. Today that isn't the case and Kindergarten is more like first grade so I have no idea how these little Kindergarteners make it through an entire day of school! We cover all our material in half the time of public school and my little 6 year old is exhausted and that is even with going to bed at a decent time the night before!

Taking that into consideration, I save our read aloud time for after lunch. We all curl up on my bed and we read. My son usually falls asleep and I encourage my daughter to try to take a nap, but on days we don't have evening activities, I will encourage her to play quietly or read in her room for quiet time.

We recently started a book as part of our Sonlight curriculum called No Children, No Pets by Marion Holland. Initially, after reading the first chapter I wasn't really enoying it and I was afraid the kids wouldn't either. I was struggling wanting to read more and so the last two weeks, we actually filled our read aloud time with other books. And then, feeling a deep need to finish a book we had started, I told my daughter we were going to start reading it again. She exclaimed, "But Mommy, you said you didn't like that book!"

Yes, I did think that after reading the first chapter; but then we kept reading this week and discovered that there is a mystery going on in the story. Now, that peaked my interest because I love a good mystery. It also opened up an opportunity to discuss  methods of solving mysteries as well as the most famous fictional detective of all, Sherlock Holmes.

We are going to see Sherlock Holmes and the First Baker Street Irregular at the Rose soon and I wanted to do a little preteaching with my daughter to explain his character and what she might expect at the show. How I wished I could show her the BBC production of Sherlock, which of course is brilliantly done, but alas that isn't quite appropriate for a six year old.

Being a few chapters in and more intrigued, we will keep reading No Children, No Pets and hopefully use our skills to solve the mystery before we finish the book.

Do you enjoy reading aloud to your kids? What books do you remember your parents reading aloud to you?