Finishing up India

We will be using the next two weeks to finish our studies of India this year. The Chief has enjoyed India so much, he just grabs a book down from the shelf and reads it on his own (which is something i had been hoping would happen for a long time. He pulls books down all the time and looks at the pictures, skims them, etc, but now he is actually reading the entire book to himself, yay!). I asked him what his favorite part about learning about India was, and he said, "Everything!" "Can you pick one thing that was your absolute favorite?" "No.... I don't want to pick one thing, I liked all of it!" Here is a view of our bookshelf for last week and this week:



A list of the books we shared/are going to share includes (these are from various reading levels, from very simple picture books to chapter books):

Monsoon, by Uma Krishnaswami
Chachaji's Cup, by Uma Krishnaswami
Spotlight on India, by Robin Johnson and Bobbie Kalman
Sacred River: The Ganges of India, by Ted Lewin
India: The Culture, by Bobbie Kalman
I is for India, by Prodeepta Das
Stories from India, by Anna Milbourne
Gandhi, by Demi
I Come from India, by Valerie J. Weber
My Dadima Wears a Sari, by Kashmira Sheth
My Mother's Sari, by Sandhya Rao
Look What Came from India, by Miles Harvey
I Remember India, by Anita Ganeri
The Sanyasin's First Day, by Ned Shank
Living in India, by Ruth Thompson
Gandhi: Young Nation Builder, by Kathleen Kudlinski
India, by Sunita Apte
India, by Henry Pluckrose
The Taj Mahal: How and Why it was Built, by Christine Moorcroft
Exploring the Life, Myth, and Art of India, by Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad
Mama's Saris, by Pooja Makhijani
The Road to Mumbai, by Ruth Jeyaveeran
Finders Keepers?, by Robert A. Arnett
Going to School in India, by Lisa Heydlauff
Lighting a Lamp: A Diwali Story, by Jonny Zucker
Monsoon Afternoon, by Kashmira Sheth

Movie series: PBS The Story of India

Now, mind you, in NO WAY should you be pressured to read all of these books with your kids. The ONLY reason I am reading them with the Chief is because he picked them out, and he is wanting to read them. He is fascinated by India. And we will have read these books over the period of five weeks. I am sure that we will come across topics that he really has no interest in, and in that case, we will only spend one week on it, enough to get it introduced and to give it a chance, but not long enough where if he finds it boring, he will hate the sight of it. It's all about developing a LOVE of learning. I try to find a good balance between being sure to introduce him to new things and then also letting him get absorbed in what his passions are.