About Dana

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I'm a dichotomy of blue jeans, pretty jewelry, frugalista, and Southern girl living the simple rural life. I want to live my life holistically, thoughtfully, economically, and most of all gratefully, and encourage other women to do the same.

Wednesday, November 9, 2011

Boys, Boys, Boys

Did you think this post was going to be about all the cute male species out in the world? Shame on you. You obviously haven't been reading my blog much. I'm very married and very in the country and very locked in the house homeschooling and working from a home office. I guess a better title post would be: Boys, Boys, Boys (Need to Read, Read, Read).

I do, however, have very personal experiences with the two males that live in my home. (I'll only discuss issues unrelated to body noises. If you have a boy or are married, I fear you know what I mean. Sorry.)

If it wasn't for all the animals in and around our house (all curiously female), I would be the only estrogen around.

What I have to say is that I have a heck of a time getting my boy (not the man of the house) to read. I bought him a bookmark with a built-in timer so he could set it to read 30 minutes per day as part of our homeschool lesson. If it weren't for that handy bookmark, I'd be wrangling with him over whether he read just 25 minutes or **horror of horrors** 31 minutes per day.

So how (ecstatically) happy I was to see this taking place ON A WEEKEND afternoon.
It's the comics, but it's the newspaper AND I DIDN'T HAVE TO SET THE READING TIMER. Maybe there's hope yet. I keep saying, "If you can read well, you can learn anything."

And yes, I know Anthony Bourdain is on in the background, but notice my beloved is looking at the paper and not the TV. Progress!

One helpful lesson my son is seeing is how TV producers take liberties with written material. For example, he has enjoyed for the last year watching the 1970s Little House on the Prairie TV series. He is currently reading his way through the 9-volume Little House set of books and often points out to me how the book differs from the TV portrayal. He seems to be realizing it's better to read to learn more details.

I like to read non-fiction and am reading a couple of books about boys now. I will share in a future post when I've made my way a little further through them.

In the meantime, happy hump day!

Love,
TCB
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2 comments:

  1. UnknownNovember 10, 2011 at 4:43 PM

    Congrats! I am w/ you boys need to read more. My son just drags his heals and does not read. I have to assign reading to him. He will listen to audio books but not read them for himself unless told. Comics are a great start. I might have to leave those out at our house too. :^) Have you seen the Homeschool Literature.com I have found that if I can tell my son that the characters are homeschooled or that a homeschooler wrote the book then he is more interested to read or listen to the book.
    Good luck in your reading adventures....

    Lil' Momma
    Living with a hard working husband, 1 toddler, 1 preschooler and 1 middle schooler who are Five in Training for HIM

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  2. The Country BelleNovember 10, 2011 at 8:44 PM

    You are dead on about telling boys that characters are homeschoolers. Something just rings a bell with them when you say that, and they want to gobble it up! Thanks for reading, and thanks for the web site info.

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