I *think* Ambelside always has a bazillion RAs going at one time which is one reason I didn't pursue it...but that's not my point, my question is how many RAs do you typically have going at once?

I have two school age kids, technically Pre-K and 2nd grade, only not really, lol!

Anyway, I currently have 5 RAs going on right now. Nursery Rhythms (one a day- no big deal) Children's Bible (one a day, no big deal) then one chapter book geared to DS (currently Olga da Polga) one chapter geared to DD (currently Little Women) PLUS a holiday chapter book for DD going right now too. Also we do a few picture books out loud a day for the little that they all like to listen to. Sometimes it feels like a LOT, other times I just wish we could sit and read to them all day long- it seems I always push them off until the "real" work is done and I know I shouldn't. I swear DD and I have been reading Little Women about 2 months too long! Anyway, seems to me the RA basket to only going to get fuller as DD #2 gets older!!

So for you: lots of RAs at one time or one at a time?

Lots at one time.

Currently I read:
1. a religious selection
2. a poem or two
3. a short art history study (from the Come Look With Me series)
4. a history or science selection (could be from an Usborne book or a historical fiction novel
5. our current Sonlight RA Gooney Bird Greene
6. and a Christmas picture book or two.

It's fun!!!

Current reads are listed on my blog.

We do Ambleside and my son (2nd grade, Year 1) loves the readalouds. Even though we use the same storybooks throughout the terms, only about 2 or 3 are ongoing stories. The others have a new story with each chapter. As the years progress, there will be the longer stories that take a whole term to complete. It's no different for us than taking our time with a bedtime readaloud (about 8 years ago I remember one of the Harry Potters took months to finish). I love the fact that we read for like 10 minutes and we're done for the day with it. The stories are really good, too.

I don't really understand Ambleside...I was just looking into it tonight for the first time.

We have one main readaloud going at a time. However, we read the Bible a little at a time so I guess that it is a readaloud too...I just see it differently since we break it down into different stories.
We read plenty of other short stories, poems, and such but that's different than a readaloud, right?

I don't really understand Ambleside...I was just looking into it tonight for the first time.

We have one main readaloud going at a time. However, we read the Bible a little at a time so I guess that it is a readaloud too...I just see it differently since we break it down into different stories.
We read plenty of other short stories, poems, and such but that's different than a readaloud, right?

Yeah maybe it's different, I keep all our RAs in one basket by the reading corner, so I consider them all RAs as long as there are in the basket :D

Two religious books, a book of children's poems, and then a bunch of books that are short enough to read in one day. So three ongoing.
We spend about an hour a day reading outloud, but it's not all at once.

Our maximum is three, and it's been a long time since we've done that many. (I consider things like poetry anthologies, short stories, picture books and the like different and don't count them in this total because they don't need to be understood as a total larger work with a continuous plot.)

I prefer one or at most two main readalouds because we can then read them at a pace that allows us to really immerse ourselves in the story and keep even the early details fresh. For a while I was reading from three different chapter books a night, one chosen by each of my older kids, with all of them listening to all three. It was just too much to keep straight in our heads, and our hour of reading per night divided amongst three novels meant it was taking up to 4-5 weeks to finish some books. Way too long, when you've got the plots of the other books swimming in your head too.

Miranda