📚 HOMESCHOOL LIBRARIES: Classic Illustrated Children’s Books Online

We think printed books are generally the best reading materials for children, especially young children. But there are many wonderful reading resources that are hard to find in print, and homeschoolers should certainly take advantage of online versions of classic works when they’re available.

The Read.gov program of the Library of Congress maintains a large collection of hard-to-find classic illustrated children’s books that are great for reading online — why not share some of them with your young readers this year:

• ➢ Classic Illustrated Children’s Books Online (read.gov)

Perhaps you and your students would like to study an apple-pie alphabet:

Or perhaps you’d like to learn the timeless lessons of Aesop’s fables, all told in rhyme and richly illustrated:

These colorful volumes do need to be viewed on a large screen — a phone won’t work very well — and the large screen will make the experience more like reading the originals as you turn from one page to the next. I haven’t tried them on a tablet, but I bet that would work well too.

For a regular homeschool story-time, why not pick ten titles from this wonderful collection and read one each week with your students for the rest of the year.

What other illustrated educational discoveries have you and your students been making in your favorite library this Cygnus Term? 😊

❡ Dukedoms large enough: Have you found all the local libraries in your area? There may be more than you realize, and there’s no better homeschool field trip than a field trip to a new library! The WorldCat Library Finder will help you find all the library collections near you — public and private, large and small — and the WorldCat catalog itself will help you locate the closest copy of almost any book in the world. 📖

❡ Books in the running brooks: The sidebar on the River Houses website has links to several wonderful online library collections that we like to explore. Why not sit yourself down at a large screen for a while (rather than a phone) and give them a browse. 🖥

❡ When in doubt, go to the library: This is one of our regular Homeschool Books & Libraries posts. Add your name to our weekly mailing list and get great homeschool teaching ideas delivered right to your mailbox all through the year. 📫

❡ Homeschool calendars: We have a whole collection of free, printable, educational homeschool calendars and planners available on our main River Houses calendar page. They will help you create a light and easy structure for your homeschool year. Give them a try today! 🗓

❡ Support our work: If you enjoy our educational materials, please support us by starting your regular Amazon shopping from our very own homeschool teaching supplies page. When you click through from our page, any purchase you make earns us a small commission at no extra cost to you. Thank you for helping us to keep going and growing! 🛒

❡ Join us! The aim of the River Houses project is to create a network of friendly local homeschool support groups — local chapters that we call “Houses.” Our first at-large chapter, Headwaters House, is now forming and is open to homeschoolers everywhere. Find out how to become one of our founding members on the Headwaters House membership page. 🏡