I made a new summer reading program for our kiddos (because let's face it, the library programs are such a hassle to record- yes, I'm that lazy- and I always misplace the reading logs anyway. Then there's the prizes. The toys are always cheap trinkets that break within a few hours or worse, disappear in the corners under the boy's beds and add to the household clutter. Not my cup of tea.).
Here's how our summer reading program works:
The first day of summer, each child receives one of these handy printed sheets to hang in their bedroom:
(Actually, the kids are begging me to let them have the poster now rather that make them wait an entire week until school is out....I suppose that's a good sign, right?)
The goal is to cross off every word before the end of summer. How does this happen? Allow me to explain.
Each time they read a book, they can cross off a topic that occurred in their story.
The words are open to interpretation to cover a wide variety of books. This is where we can get really creative with things.
For example, let's look at the word 'Revolution'. They could read a book about the American Revolution, the Green Revolution, the French Revolution, the revolutions of the planets or stars, revolutions of gears in a Steam Punk novel, revolutions of dancers doing the waltz at a royal ball, etc.
Each book can be used to cross off no more than two words on the poster.
As the summer progresses, they'll be looking for specific books to cross off their remaining words. This will encourage them to read a broader ranger of topics instead of sticking to the same series (or comic books!) all summer.
I tried to include a wide variety of topics so it will be a bit like a puzzle to find all the books. I'm hoping this will spur some great dialogues between the child and their librarian as they seek help in finding random books to fill in the gaps on their poster.
At the end of the summer, each child who has their list completed will get to participate in our Family Literature Celebration.
We haven't decided what the celebration will be yet- the jury's still out on that one. The kids are helping choose a fun family activity for the reward. I'm thinking a fun camping trip to a lake, or a weekend trip to visit Grandparents in Louisiana.
Anyway, what do you think? Is this something your family would enjoy or not? How would you make it better?
4 comments:
Love it! It's kind of like a Tetris game, where they're trying to fit everything together. I like how it encourages diversity in reading. I had the hardest time getting Eric to read fiction...had to write my own stories about him, or sneak it to him as comic books. Or just flat out "assign" it to him for homeschool.
Is it okay if I steal your idea?
Gail- Of course you can use it! Just print off the image if you happen to like my selection of topics. If you prefer to reinvent the chart and make a list tailored to your family, I found picmonkey.com to be a useful place to create the chart. Have fun! BTW- Clever ideas on tricking Eric to read fiction!
You know, this is so exciting! that I almost want to do it myself as I have no children, yet.
What I always do is rewrite the list of my "Required reading" (in college) on a good quality paper in ink and title it as "The list of good books" instead of "required books" and it makes all the difference.
Btw, I miss you all so much and I'm sure the reading will be so enjoyable for all of you.
You know, this is so exciting! that I almost want to do it myself as I have no children, yet.
What I always do is rewrite the list of my "Required reading" (in college) on a good quality paper in ink and title it as "The list of good books" instead of "required books" and it makes all the difference.
Btw, I miss you all so much and I'm sure the reading will be so enjoyable for all of you.
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