Juggling Read Alouds with Multiple Kids

I’m happy to be a BookShark Ambassador. I received this year’s history curriculum free of charge in exchange for honest reviews. All opinions are my own.

At home we’ve got an 11, 10, 7, 5, and 2 year old, plus a baby.  While the kids love read aloud time, it’s gotten to be stressful to manage everyone’s needs.

I’ve seen tips like “have bins of playdoh or other special toys to keep little hands busy,” or “utilize audio books.” Basic ideas like “get everyone a snack first” have been helpful to our family, but here’s what else I’m trying this year.

#1 Enlist Older Kids to Read to the Littles

After feeling bad about not getting a chance to read alllllllll of our beautiful books to our kindergartener, I started assigning our two older kids to each select two picture books to read to her. It’s their choice, and they seem to enjoy scouring the shelves for some of their favorites from years ago.

I like that the older kids have a chance to practice “performing,” complete with voices for each of the characters, and I appreciate that our youngest kids get even more read aloud time than I’m able to provide.

With so many picture books read to them during the day, the littles are less likely to fuss about having to endure read-alouds aimed at the older kids.

#2 Get a Basket

I’ve always just grabbed a book for the next read aloud at random from our collection. But with lots of kids (with lots of opinions!) it ends up being a struggle to decide on what’s next, especially if I can’t find the particular book I was hoping to read next.

This year, I took an $8 plastic basket from Target and filled it with on-deck books to read aloud. Here’s a peek:

Half the books are from BookShark’s Read-Alouds B (ages 6-8), half are from Read-Alouds G (ages 11-13). When we get through all of them, I’ll fill it up again with a mix of younger-aimed and older-aimed books.

#3 Choose Books with Wide Appeal

It can be a challenge to find books that are appropriate and interesting for a wide age range. The attention span and interests of a two-year-old and a twelve-year-old are quite different! That’s true for everything from books to fieldtrips.

While I included books with a primary target of either our older or younger kids, I want all the kids to at least marginally enjoy every read. But without pre-reading every. single. book. that’s hard to guarantee.

Sarah MacKenzie of Read Aloud Revival has been our best source for years for family-friendly reads, and so far BookShark has been a winner as well.

All our kids listened to me read The Adventures of Sir Balin the Ill-Fated, which was included in the  Reading with History G Read-Alouds and Regular Readers. The oldest four kids all laughed along.

Our current read aloud is I, Juan de Pareja, also from the Reading with History G Read-Alouds and Regular Readers set. While there is some vocabulary that’s definitely above the heads of the littles, they still listen.

And even though Moe (7) is way younger than the recommended age of 11-13, he’s always pushing for us to read “just one more chapter.” Our BookShark Reading with History seems to have taken out some of the guess-work in choosing books with wide appeal.

Our next read is probably going to be Charlotte’s Web, which will be a re-read for three of us but brand new for Moe (7) and Bea (5).

Books worth reading aloud are worth listening to again and again. I have a hunch that Cee (almost 12!) and Elle (10) will enjoy it even more this time around.

The best parts of homeschooling for us have come from the experience of sharing books together. Although adding more kids to the mix has complicated things, a little fine-tuning means we’re ready for more learning, connecting, laughing through read alouds this year.

Do you have any tips to share about juggling family-wide read alouds? Recommendations for crowd-pleasers to add to our list? I’d love to hear them!