We’ve hit the ground running with my 3rd grader. We read aloud A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle, which remains basically one of the greatest books of all time, and it was so fun to experience again it through my daughter. I’ll be reading it later this fall with the 4th/5th graders and I think we’ll have some great discussions about sacrifice, fear, and flaws.

The first two books we finished for Sonlight Core D were A Lion to Guard Us by Clyde Robert Bulla and Pedro’s Journal by Pam Conrad.

My daughter was supposed to read Lion to herself, but we ended up alternating chapters because she’s still short on endurance. I thought it was a sweet story and a good introduction to American history.

Pedro’s Journal really surprised me. I’ve struggled with how to teach Columbus, and I thought this book was perfect because it shared the history without shying away from Columbus’s arrogance and the tragic effect he had on the indigenous people he met. We had some good conversations about what it would be like to have someone come in and assume they could do whatever they wanted to with your land and your home, all in an age-appropriate way.