The First One Hundred!

Lucy's completed her First One Hundred Books! I don't even know when we started it. I said on Instagram two years but I'm thinking now it might be closer to three. It's been so much fun the last few months as each book, she'd ask "How many more?"

I thought it would be fun to look at her progression through that time. Don't worry, I won't write down every single book she read, that would require me being able to read my handwriting in those tiny boxes. But these are the highlights (i.e. the ones I want to remember when Jonah and Norah get to that point. If I can't rely on my brain, I use my blog!)

1-21 (then intermixed with the others) Bob books.

 These make up large portion of the first 100 because that I used Brandy's website as my main teaching method (with a bit of Ordinary Parent's Guide to Teaching Reading once we finished as she seemed to need a bit more explicit phonics for a while. We've dropped that for now (again) but I might bring it back if she seems to be struggling with harder phonics later on).

22. Cat the Cat, Who is That? by Mo Williams.

53. Sheep in a Jeep by Nancy E. Shaw

54. See Me Run by Paul Meisel

59. (And 62, 68, 78, 86 ) Mole Sisters Series by Roslyn Schwartz - These are a bit quirky but Lucy really loved them. I think we read every title our library system had.

68. See Me Dig - Sequel to See Me Run but be forewarned, its a tad creepier with some pirate ghosts. Didn't bother me kids but it did me.

70. First Steps. When she finished the Bob Books Series, we alternated between two primers/readers for school time. This one is a bit more sight word based but very sweet. We have the whole series and my hope is that once Lucy is happy to read other books on her own, we'll keep practicing reading aloud with these and the other reader series we use.

83. Tom Thumb by Margaret Hillert - I can't find a link to this one because its pretty old but Margaret Hillert seems to have decent easy readers, the folk stories more so than the dear dragon ones.

84. Waiting is Hard by Mo Williams. No, it's not, as any parenting that is waiting for a child to sound out a word she just read of the previous page not more than a minute ago! But Mo Williams isn't bas listening material. She's also read lots of other Mo Williams but I only counted ones for her chart that I hadn't previously read to her.

87. The Treadwell Primer - The second of the two readers I mentioned. It's delightful. She got half way through the Treadwell First Grade book but fell in love with Arnold Lobel and we've been sidetracked by him lately. We will probably go back to the first reader eventually. It's much easier to just stick with a reader for a few weeks than to make sure we have shorter books constantly at the ready.

90. The Foot Book. Ah,  can't have a beginner reading list without a little Dr. Seuss can we?

92. The Cat in the Hat.

93. Hop on Pop...Apparently, this was our Dr. Seuss phase.

98. Frog and Toad Together...now we getting to the good stuff!

99. Owl at Home. "Mom, my brain is kinda tired of reading but it's so funny, I can't stop reading!"

100. The King's Wish. Cute with fun colors. A Christmas present that had her stopping Frog and Toad are Friend's half way finished. (And she did go back and finish Frog and Toad right after this one)

Extras: So apparently I was not a great trackers because I know that she also read at least one Little Bear and two Dr. Seuss books but they aren't on the chart. I might have left them off because I had previously read them to her - or it might just have been a mistake. But Little Bear is right up there with Arnold Lobel. It's when parent's breathe a sign of relief because finally the choices aren't dreadful to listen to as a parent.

She did spend quite a bit of time in the finished with Bob Books but not quite ready for the nice Frog and Toad/Little Bear books level. If you read the link I had up to Brandy's first one hundred post, she talks about that stage and how to avoid getting stuck there. Lucy definitely did.

She started reading really young so I knew that quite possible could happen. And anytime I started to care/worry about that, I turned to a fellow homeschooling mom or two to set me back on the calm collected "she's doing fine" path. So I continued to count the ones she read, even if not at a progressively harder level because she was working hard at what she read. That said, I didn't count books at an easier level than she could read or ones she quite possible could have had memorized from earlier. But a new book that required work on her part - yep!

You can tell right at the end of this list, just the past 2 months or so, she's passed that and is now reading much longer portions at a time so I think we'll easily be ready to move on to something like Jenny and the Cat Club or Billy and Blaze books once we've exhausted the Arnold Lobel section of our library.

The reward for reading a hundred books? A special date with daddy! Now because its been so long, she's changed her mind about what she wants to do with daddy a couple times. I think they've picked an afternoon at the botanical gardens together but he's trying to convince her bowling would be fun as well (and warmer ;-)