What We are Reading Wednesday: 2020-2021 Chapter Book Read Aloud Calendar

Last year I planned out a year long calendar of chapter books to read aloud.  I didn’t stick to it 100% but I really liked the idea of planning out the books in advance so I can coordinate them with certain months/ seasons or to coincide with other things we will be learning.  I decided to do it again this year and wanted to share our calendar and plans on the blog:

Chapter Books for 2020-2021

Here are the books I plan to read aloud to the kids:

Little House in the Big Woods, Farmer Boy and Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder.

The Indian in the Cupboard by Lynne Reid Banks

The Vanderbeekers of 141st St by Karina Yan Glaser

The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dagliesh

The Borrowers by Mary Norton

The Tale of Desperaux by Katie DiCamillo

Guns for General Washington by Seymour Reit

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett

From the Mixed up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E.L. Konigsburg

Poppy by Brian Floca

The Cricket in Times Square by George Selden

Toys Go Out by Emily Jenkins

The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

I put a lot of thought into the books we will read each year.  I want to introduce my children to heroes, to beautiful stories with a benevolent worldview and I want to help them fall in love with reading.  Of course there comes a responsibility with reading classic books to children in today’s society.  We have plenty of discussions as we read and I am careful to present historical context.

I created the read aloud calendar using Excel.  I added in the pictures of the book covers simply because I like the way that looks.  It’s completely unnecessary!  I print this out and keep it with my homeschool records.  I check off each book after we read it or I cross out a book and replace it with a new title if I need to.  This is also a helpful tool when filing homeschool reporting information.