How To Use Living Books To Enrich a Lesson | Homeschool Teaching Tips

Today I am writing about something near and dear to my heart: Reading! More specifically, how I use picture books, or living books, to enrich a homeschool lesson—even for topics like math or science!

I have always been a reader, and I always knew that children’s literature would be big part of my homeschool style.

As a child, my dad brought us to the library almost every Saturday. I would scour the shelves for new titles, excited to dive in. I also loved reading to my siblings, and creating reports or projects related to books. If any of you remember the Book It program through Pizza Hut, that is another core memory of mine! Each month, at our elementary school, students would track their reading. You could get individual prizes, and class prizes, depending on how much you read! I earned a huge “Book It!” button with little circles on it for each month. Each month that you met the reading quota, you would earn a sticker. I collected them all! Each month after I earned my sticker, I would also earn a Free Personal Pan Pizza from Pizza Hut and my family would often go. I remember this like it was yesterday!

Creating Lifelong Readers

Since reading was a huge part of my childhood, I knew I wanted that for my own kids, as well. When they were toddlers, I would research booklists and check out titles recommended by Sarah at Read Aloud Revival. As they grew older, we progressed to chapter books, and we started with my own favorites from childhood. My fourth grader and I even do our own Book Club together each summer-just me and him!

Ok, so let’s see. Obviously someone who loves to read, and wants to incorporate books into her homeschool, would do so, right? Of course. The surprise for me came with non-literary subjects: math, science, healthy, etc. How did I start to incorporate children’s books into homeschooling…for non-literary subjects?

The simple answer is, through Singapore Math! You may have read my Curriculum Reviews last month (core subject reviews here, elective subject reviews here) but we have used Singapore Math since we started homeschooling in 2023. At the time, my oldest two were 2nd grade and kindergarten, so I was using the textbooks & teacher guides for those two grade levels.

I noticed that the curriculum had a list of Suggested Books for both grade levels, and they looked like picture book titles! I was intrigued. I started planning out my library reserves, based on what we would need by week–and I was thrilled with the richness these titles provided to our lessons.

Living Books Versus Textbooks

In Charlotte-Mason-Homeschooling circles, traditional textbooks tend to get a bad rap. Charlotte-Mason style focuses on living books, or books written by one author that focus on one specialized subject. For example: in the book Minnie’s Diner by Dayle Ann Dodds, a family of boys visit a diner, in succession, and order more and more food. (The size of the boys also gets bigger as the story progresses). The story presents multiplication in a fun, memorable, and real-life type of way. My preschooler loves the book, even though he may not understand multiplication quite yet. A textbook, on the other hand, may have a few engaging examples but in general may not stick with the child quite as well.

While much of my own homeschool style is Charlotte-Mason-esque, I actually still really like textbooks! But, that is a discussion for another day. The point is, picture books can enhance your lesson significantly.

Here are a few basic ways I’ve seen this in our homeschool:

• Picture books (or living books) are accessible and familiar to kids, especially if they frequent the library!
• Picture books are inviting and interesting to look at. They have colorful covers & pages, short amounts of text, and (hopefully) have a story arc that kids can follow.
• Picture books are easy to repeat during the day, and week! I don’t know about you, but my kids love hearing the same stories over and over. This is not only developmentally appropriate, but very positive. There are many articles that explain the science behind this!
• Picture books make academic learning more tangible, relatable and applicable to real-life. Your child may sigh if you tell them “time to work on our multiplication facts!” but they may perk up if you read them Minnie’s Diner- even for the fourth time!
• Picture books provide a nice break in your school day. Reading together is bonding, relaxing, and often a good reset. If if feel our homeschool day has run amok (with an almost-two-year-old right now, this is a daily occurrence for us!) I will often have us “reset” by reading a few picture books. Everyone gathers around, and we reset and calm the squabbles by getting caught up in a good book. The bonus here, is that I am reinforcing academic concepts while I do so!
• Picture books presented to your kids provide a literary-rich environment, and there’s a good chance that your kiddos will pick up that book again later in the day, when they have their quiet time or are passing through. My second-grade daughter likes to read “fun books” (what she calls non-chapter books) for her D.E.A.R (Drop Everything And Read) time each day. Even though she is a fluent reader and reads chapter books as well, she often chooses to read picture books!
• Picture books help establish reading as a lifelong passion and skill. What more could you ask for?!

Using Picture Books for Homeschool Math & Science Lessons

After I first discovered the book lists that our Singapore Math curriculum provided, I got into the habit of looking up picture book titles for other nonliterary subjects, too! We are doing Apologia Anatomy curriculum this year, and I have found dozens of incredible picture books to accompany every chapter!

I am working on an Favorite Academic Books List, hoping to have it ready later this spring. In the meantime, here are some of our favorite Math authors, to start!

Favorite Math Series & Authors

• Series: The Sir Cumference Series, by Cindy Neuschwander –we started with All The Kings Tens for place value
• Author: David Adler (We own his book called Place Value)
• Author: Stuart J. Murphy (TOP Math Author; I must’ve read more than 12 incredible titles by him! His are very specific for math functions! Check out: Give Me Half, The Penny Pot, Divide & Ride, Safari Park, A Fair Bear Share, More of Less, and Less Than Zero.
• Author: Tana Hoban: hers are old, published in the 1980’s and 1990’s, but they were still at our library. She shows various types of 2D and 3D shapes in typical scenes of life–great for lower elementary!
• Author: Joseph Midthun (He has tons for math & science, they’re geared toward middle to upper elementary)
• Books: One Odd Day and My Even Day by Dani Sneed and Doris Fisher

I would love to hear your favorites! I love using living books to enrich homeschool lessons, especially for drier subjects like math and science. I hope this post inspires you to do the same!

Cait