4 1/2 years old

Smoothies and Books - Summer Reading Inspiration

16:25

It's the summer holidays!  We are loving these long, lazy days of just going with the flow, playing all day long and relaxing.  If you follow me on Instagram or Facebook you may have noticed that there is one thing that I am trying to do each day with the children, and that's read!  It's so important to keep Ethan reading over the summer and to build on Ivy's growing love of books as she is just learning to read.  So every day I make smoothies for all of us (get some healthy food in there too!) and we each choose a book to read!  It's called Smoothies and Books and it's one of our favourite parts of the day!



We have a great selection of books at home, and we have also been visiting the library and we're taking part in the Summer Reading Challenge here in the UK, which we highly recommend (hopefully libraries worldwide have similar programs).  It's another great way to inspire the kids to keep reading all summer long.



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At home I allow the children to choose any book that they like for our Smoothies and Books time.  It can be a reading scheme book (at any level), a picture book, a chapter book, a comic or a joke book.  Any reading will do in this house, we are not book snobs, we love them all!  In fact, we have so many books that we love, that we don't want to keep them to ourselves any more, here are some of our favourites:


Our Favourite Reading Scheme Books

  • Songbirds - these are part of Oxford Reading Tree so they follow the same levels, but they are written by Julia Donaldson, whom we adore, so they're a fun option to have at home

  • Oxford Reading Tree - these are the ones that they use at Ethan and Ivy's school, so they're great to keep us on the right level (but we try not to read too many so that they haven't then read all of the schools' books!)

  • Read Write Inc Phonics - this is the reading scheme that I used when I was a teacher and I really loved the whole process, so the books are great, especially at the lower levels.

  • Read it Yourself with Ladybird - a lot of these books are of characters or stories that are familiar to the children, which is a fun way for them to get into the books.


Our Favourite Picture Books

  • The Gruffalo (and anything else by Julia Donaldson) - a modern classic and just so much fun to read and do all the different voices!


  • Green Eggs and Ham (and anything else by Dr Seuss) - my childhood favourites that I love to share with the children





  • Oi Frog! (and the other books in the series; Oi Dog!, Oi Cat!) - a hilarious series of books that makes fantastic use of rhyming words and I absolutely never get tired of reading!

  • How to Catch a Star (and anything else by Oliver Jeffers) - such a sweet and funny book about a boy on a mission who never gives up.

Our Favourite Chapter Books

  • Zoey and Sassafras series - finally a series that is aimed at younger children and features a fantastically clever and strong girl character, we love Zoey!

  • How to Train Your Dragon series - another great series that isn't too intense for younger children and that Ethan loves to follow along with, great for imagining up situations with real dragons and adventure!



  • Treehouse series - a fun adventure with an ever growing and incredible treehouse


Our Favourite Comic Books (and other non traditional reading books)


  • Pokemon Handbook - kids don't even know they're reading when it's all about their favourite Pokemon characters!

We are always looking for book suggestions, what are your favourites?  And we'd love you to join us for Smoothies and Books, just use #smoothiesandbooks to share what you're reading (and drinking!)

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* This is a review post and also contains affiliate links, we were sent some of these books to review, all opinions are our own.*

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