It’s August! Time for a book report, right? Just kidding! Here’s a mostly-visual sampling of what the kids are reading this summer! Their Together Book: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts One and Two, J.K. Rowling In July, Toby faithfully read a chapter a day of this book until completion…and he loved it: Armada, Ernest Cline […]
If the other week was about the Manga Selfie, this week is all about the “shelfie!” Recently, one of us saw a gorgeous book bag which featured a shelf full of beloved book spines on offer from a big-name publisher. It was beautiful, and we wanted it. But, then, we thought, why not make our own? So, […]
You asked us what we were reading? Here are the kids’ top book pics for Summer of Funner 2015! Together, we’re reading…. Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lason and Sydney Smith Anansi/Groundwood, 2015 As lovers of JonArno Lawson’s poems, I wasn’t sure how the kids were going to respond to this wordless jaunt through town. Reader, […]
Although we’re nearing the end of the summer, I introduced the kids to a new art-meets-books project yesterday. It’s one I hope to revive in various forms as we move into The Lunchbox Season: Kid-Drawn Stories. What did I do? I asked the kids to draw a picture or series of pictures that told a story […]
Anyone who saw last year’s Chaucer Comics would know how much we love to make comic books out of classic literature! Today, I gave the kids and guest a few blank sheets of paper and asked them to come up with a quick six-panel modernized scene from Sense and Sensibility. Here are the kids’ Sense and Sensibility […]
Bea has a friend over this week, and so we thought we’d continue our Summer of Ability Film Fest by showing her the 1995 version of Sense and Sensibility. Afterwards, I decided to get them into the text itself by creating some Mad Libs -style word games out of three key scenes: Marianne’s twisted ankle and […]
Following up on last summer’s fantastic viewing of the Canadian Stage performance of Macbeth in Toronto’s High Park, we knew that returning for more Shakespeare in the Park would be a high priority on this summer’s Love-to-do-List! So, on Wednesday night, we took in a performance of Titus Andronicus. We had such a great time, and […]
Yesterday, the kids listened to the second half of their Treasure Island audiobook while thumbing through and colouring the Dover Human Anatomy Colouring Books I picked up for them at the start of the summer. As the story was coming to its close, I asked them to use ink pens to draw a Pirate Anatomy poster, […]
We have always had a fine culture of reading aloud in the house. Of course, there’s bed-time reading. And, then, there’s reading all over the city on our way from here to there. To complement this reading, we’ve often gone on to illustrate what we’ve listened to once the reading was over [see our Bisclavret illustrations […]
To start off the Summer Books series for our Summer of Ability 2014, I pointed the kids to one of the earliest stories of an ABLE body! We read, listened to, and illustrated Aelfric’s Old English version of the Life of Saint Edmund. The kids are no strangers to Old English in translation. Last summer we read […]
Last year, we had quite a formal Summer Film festival. We made tickets and produced a “Film Review” worksheet for the kids. This year, our Film Festival was fairly casual, but we still managed to produce quite a dialogue about each movie. There was a nice mix between new, popular releases and older classics. Many […]
Today, I got the kids hooked on Ray Bradbury. I read the kids two of my favourite short stories, “A Sound of Thunder” and “Dark They Were, And Golden Eyed.” In the first story, Eckels signs up for a “Time Safari” and heads off into the past to shoot a dinosaur. He steps off of […]
This week, we read portions of Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, and we watched two film versions: a somewhat-faithful 3-hour television movie from 1996 starring Ted Danson; and the first non-Disney animated movie from the late 1930s. The kids had certain favourite moments from the tale. They absolutely loved the final two sections of the travels, particularly […]
It’s Ghost Story time at Summer of Funner! On Friday, as part of our outdoor campout [post to follow], I read the kids two stories from Poe’s Tales of Mystery and Imagination. First, I took a flying leap and read them the rather gruesome story of “The Black Cat.” [Warning, parents – this story is […]
Today, I read the kids a large section of Book 9, Paradise Lost [from about l. 415 to the end]. In their Yesterday Books, I asked them to write down any particular words or ideas they liked and to sketch as I read. Mostly, though, they just luxuriated on the couch and listened. Tobes loved […]
It’s Shakespeare week. And, really, It couldn’t have come at a better time…for any of us. As you may know, we tackled the lovely Winter’s Tale last Christmas by illustrating our favourite scenes and creating cover designs! [Check out our Winter’s Tale posts here!] Well, grab your kilts and your broomsticks, people, because, this summer, […]
Within five minutes, we had read about a knight, a lady, a dragon, a dwarf, a vomiting half-female half-serpent monster, and her combustible spawn….This week, we’re reading the first book of Spenser’s Faerie Queene, and the kids are loving it! The first book features the adventures of the Red Crosse Knight [or St. George] and […]
Medieval Bad Girls (and Chickens) Week continues in our Summer Reading Series…. Today, the “chickens” come into play…I read the kids a small bit of Chaucer’s Middle English as well as Peter Ackroyd’s prose treatment of Chaucer’s “Nun’s Priest’s Tale” from his Canterbury Tales: A Retelling. [We borrowed this one from the Toronto Public Library as […]
