Third Grade Read Aloud List

On the giveaway that I posted this week, I mentioned that Elliott and I have finalized a list of 20 books that we plan on reading this year as part of our school day.  This will definitely not be the only 20 books that we read throughout the school year, but I thought 20 would be a good starting point.  :)  They are all chapter books, although we plan on using some picture books this year, too.  We do use Reading Street for language arts as well, and that has a picture book each week that we read together and do worksheets about.

When we were picking books out, we kind of went all over the place.  We picked some classic books, and some new books, and some in between.  We chose books that appeal to 2nd graders, and books that appeal to junior high kids.  We chose books that will take us about a week to read, and books that will take closer to a month.  We didn't really have any set parameters, because this reading is for fun, and I wanted to make sure that it was all stuff Elliott would enjoy.  He purposely picked several that have film adaptations so that we can watch the film and compare and contrast as well.

We already had most of the books in our shelves, but will be ordering a few as well.  I like to have a copy of the ones that we read together, so we can check another copy out at the library and each hold our own copies while we read together.  In fact, there are 2 or 3 books that we actually own a second copy of because we got the second in a bigger pack from scholastic.  Even though I pulled these from our own shelves, most were books we hadn't read yet.  We have always had the problem of buying more books than we have time to read in the past, but I'm hoping that phase is over now that we have so much more dedicated time to reading together!

 This is the stack of books that we want to read together, or I plan on reading out loud to him.  We also have the Chronicles of Narnia set, and the Harry Potter books that we will try to read if we get a chance, but we might wait until next year on those.  Others that we don't have yet, but plan on reading as well include the Sarah, Plain and Tall books (I believe there are three?) by Patricia MacLachlan and Number the Stars by Lois Lowry.

There are also a number of books that Elliott has already read that he wants to read again, like the Runaway Ralph series, and the Fudge books.  So, in other words, we have a lot of reading planned. :)

We are almost finished reading Charlotte's Web right now.  I think the next book we start will be Hotel For Dogs.  When Elliott was younger, the movie was his very favorite.  I think he was probably about 3 or maybe 4.  I'm not sure exactly how old he was, but he was little enough that he called it "Hofer Tail Dogs" instead of saying it the right way.  We are pretty excited to read the book now!

Our Recent Reading List

I know it's been a while since I've posted about the books we are reading at our house.  We do still read a lot,  but it seems like now that the books we read are often longer, and Elliott has more homework, we just don't get as much reading done together as we would like.  Currently Elliott is kind of transitioning more and more away from picture books.  There are still a few that he loves, but he very rarely reaches for one anymore, unless it's a holiday themed one.  Of course right now we are reading some Easter picture books, but after Easter he might not touch another picture book until we pull out Halloween books.

We just finished reading all of the Guardians of Childhood books by William Joyce.  We really liked them all. The movie is one of Elliott's favorite, so he was excited to check out the first book. I think it took us about a week to read it. At least one of the others also went that fast, but one of them took us over two weeks to read. It wasn't that the book wasn't good, it was just a busy time. It was the one we were reading when we had a lot of extra stuff going on.   So far there are four books out, with at least one more planned.  They are most appealing to kids in grades 2-6.

Guardians of Childhood

 We are currently reading Dragon Rider by Cornelia Funke.  We have only been reading it for a few days, and we both like it so far.  It's a really long book (nearly 550 pages!) so it will probably take us quite a while to read it, but so far neither of us have lost interest.  It's the first of Cornelia Funke's books we've read, but Elliott has already added another one to our wishlist on Amazon. According to Scholastic, it's most appealing to kids in third to fifth grade.

Dragon Rider

 I included links so you can learn more about the books if you like.  They are my affiliate Amazon links.

Elliott's Reading List April 12

Elliott and I have recently been adding to his book collection again.  We got rid of over 300 books that he decided he had outgrown earlier this year, and we've been working on adding more chapter books and looking for new ones to try.

This week he didn't read any new chapter book series, but he wanted me to tell you about  other books that he likes.  He's decided to help me write these blog posts, by doing book reports for me.




One of the series that he thinks is perfect for kids who like picture books is Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin.  He thinks that the books are appropriate for preschool to second graders.  The reading levels range from kindergarten to end of first grade.

We like that the books are upbeat and fun.  He also likes that the cat wears shoes.  He has two of them, and while they aren't books that we have ever read every week or anything, they are ones that he goes back to, and has read several times.



Another series that is relatively new to Elliott is Nate the Great by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat.  These books have been around since the 70's, so some of you probably remember them from your own childhood.

Elliott loves the Nate the Great books he has read so far.  He thinks they are funny, and he likes the mystery.  His favorite characters are Nate and his dog Sludge.  Elliott really likes it that Nate is independent and can do a lot of things for himself.  He especially thinks it's cool that Nate makes his own pancakes.

Elliott says this book was a little easy to read, and probably best for readers that are 7-10.  He thinks that preschoolers through third or fourth graders would probably like the stories.