Some of Our Favorite Books...For Learning

**Some people have asked me about kids books we like and I've finally gotten around to writing a post about it! But I realized we have so many favorites, I'm going to make this post into a series. Here's the second installment: Books for Learning!!**

Click here to read the first post in this series...Books for Fun!

I love getting supplement books for our homeschool from the library. There's just too many books out there for me to afford them all or have room for them all. Getting great resources from the library makes for fun variety and a great way to introduce new topics to kids.

Some of these are more educational than others but we love them and have learned some interesting things.

The Big Book of Bugs by Yuval Zommer
My son and daughter love this book. It's fairly new (published last year) and HUGE!! It's almost as tall as my two year old. Each spread focuses on a type of bug with lots of illustrations and various facts. I love it because it's not full of words but the facts presented are easy for my kids to remember. Their favorite? The dung beetle, mainly because they can't believe there's a bug that eats do-do!

Lonely Planet's Beautiful World
The pictures in this book are amazing. The only words tell you where the picture was taken, everything else is just full color beauty of our amazing world. Since we learned world geography this year, my daughter loved seeing pictures of some of the countries we had talked about. And they are breathtaking. I've included a few pictures of the spreads.

The Cello of Mr. O by Jane Cutler
After reading this book, the main themes were lost on my five year old. I would say it's more for middle graders but it still gave us things to talk about. It takes place in a war zone - the country, war, or time period are not specified. The town is in ruins and many people are leaving. A girl plays with her friends but the man downstairs is a grump. All he does is tell them to be quite and sit in his apartment playing his cello. But when the war gets even closer, they all learn that sometimes comfort and kindness come from where we least expect it and in beautiful ways.


Race the Wild Wind by Sandra Markle
I enjoyed this book more for the pictures than the story. It gives a fictionalized account of the wild horses on Sable Island off the coast of Canada. Through the story of one horse, we live through a year of running wild, finding a family, surviving storms, and making a home. The author's note at the end was interesting and had me Googleing Sable Island for more information. Any child who loves horses would enjoy this book, for the story and for the beautiful drawings.


A is for America by Devin Scillian
Each two page spread is a letter of the alphabet and various things about America or American history that start with that letter. Unlike some alphabet books, multiple words are used for almost every letter and more detailed information is given at the side of each page.

Me on the Map by Joan Sweeney
Especially if you have kids who love to draw, this is a great book for learning about town, state, country, etc relationships. It starts with a girl drawing a picture of her room, then her house, then her street, until it zooms out to the earth. Then we zoom back in reverse order. The pictures are bright and colorful and introduce kids to the concept of where they live compared with where others live. It was also a Reading Rainbow book, if you're old enough to remember that show. :)