It’s that time of year where it can be easy to fall into the winter doldrums, especially for stay-at-home moms. The rush of holiday excitement is over. Now what?
January is the perfect time to discover, cultivate, and celebrate reading aloud as the chief source of family entertainment! The cold outdoor weather forces us indoors which is prime space for reading aloud. We can’t garden easily and are mostly relieved of yard duties and other warm-weather activities, so we can spend our extra time reading (and playing board games…future post about that coming)!
Here are some helps for that!
1. Read the “Bible” of reading-books-aloud-as-entertainment, shown above, for a TON of motivation. My homeschooling mom friend Shauna Bird Dunn does this every January. I love that idea! Here’s a podcast with Sarah Mackenzie and Cyndi Giorgis, who edited and revised the current edition.
2. Do Morning Basket time with your children. Here’s my blog about that. I love easing into my homeschool day every morning with picture books! Call it Breakfast and Books, or Cocoa and Books, and do it at the table, or right after breakfast and clean-up, in the living room, cuddled up with blankets. So yummy! This is where I read aloud books to my youngest child based on the current season and/or month. Find monthly lists here after you click on a season link on my new site.
3. Have activities that you only allow your children to participate in while you are reading aloud to them. Some ideas are here. This idea goes well with #2 above.
4. Set aside a time at least once a week where you as a family read silently and then share what you are reading every 15-30 minutes or so, along the lines of Jim Trelease’s phrase from one of his other books, “Hey listen to this…” I call these, “Reading-in Nights.” Use twinkle lights, yummy snacks/charcuterie board/and/or easy dinner (pizza!), space heater nearby or fire in the fireplace, blankets, and soft music to make it so inviting!
5. During mealtime with your family, do book “commercials” where you promote books you want your children to read.
6. Limit screen time so your children are naturally driven to discover and read the books lying around your home. I love Jennifer Flanders’ ideas for limiting screen time here, especially her idea here for linking reading time to screen time, where her kids may earn screen time by reading.
7. Read this article, by a mom of 4 boys, published in 1973, but which is totally still relevant today, called, “I Threw Our TV Away.” It’s by Elaine S. McKay. I love her ideas! We have always had the rule that our children have to ask permission for turning the TV on, similar to her situation of having the TV behind closed doors inside a shelving unit. So it’s not just “there” to be turned on at whim. I want to take her ideas further by using them to motivate me to host a monthly meeting for my children and their friends for an hour where they gather to read and eat, then spend the next hour sharing what they have learned.
8. Strew books around your home, as described here in a blog and here in a video. Then this blog over here has lots of book suggestions with companion kits/games/activities.
9. Listen to the Read Aloud Revival Podcast by Sarah Mackenzie and use her ideas. She has so many great episodes. My faves are: this one about the biggest mistake done when reading aloud, this one about the importance of moms reading for fun, and this one about kids’ reading and screen time.
10. Encourage your children to complete reading challenges, like the one from Jennifer Flanders here, with a predetermined reward you will give them for finishing the challenge. That page I just linked to also has great book suggestions!
11. Go to the public library regularly, like once a month, every other week, or once a week, and let your children get books they are interested in. We go about twice a week, because we live so close to our public library. Paradise!
12. Read aloud to your children while they do chores. This is how we got through Holly Claus with two of my older children one bleak January. Such fond memories!
13. Give your children book lights and space by their beds to keep books (nightstand, box, or basket) to encourage reading in bed. There’s nothing like falling asleep peacefully after family prayer and hug, individual prayer, and a good (not scary) book!
14. Give books and book-themed gifts for Christmas, birthdays, or just for fun! Over the years, for most birthdays, I have given a book to my children in addition to a bigger present that they usually ask for. Even if I have to buy it from a thrift store, I get a book (usually– I have forgotten a few times). Ideas for book-themed gifts are here. As they get older, your children will probably appreciate a bookshelf as a gift for a Christmas or birthday. Then they can leave home with a bookcase full of beloved books.
15. Get a reading journal for yourself, pictured above, and inspire your children to want one for children, as pictured below.
16. Create an account in goodreads.com with shelves dedicated to books you read aloud to your children and books they read to themselves. As you and they finish reading books, let them review the books in goodreads. If they are young, they can narrate a review that you type in, and as they get older you can let them type up the review themselves.
17. Help your children host a book club that meets monthly where the children take turns picking the book, within certain parameters. Then you meet to discuss the book with meaningful discussion questions. If you feel ambitious, include a snack and or activity related to the theme of the book.
18. Host a board game night with book-themed games. Here are some ideas here and here.
Bring Your Own Book is a simple game. You can find a free print and play version here, which can be used with any books.
Liebrary is like Balderdash but for the first lines of books. I absolutely love that the pawns for the game look like little books! Rules for a DIY version of Liebrary Jr. are in my ebook about gameschooling, which you can get here.
Here’s Jim Trelease on the power of reading aloud to children. So good!
Tree of Life Mothering 