Status Update

It is Day 10 of our summer reading program. As you'll recall, I came up with the brilliant concept of the 3000 Pages of Summer Reading a few weeks before school was out and incentivized the plan with the sweet bribe of Disney.  If the {big} kids can read 3000 pages between June 1st and August 1st, we promised them a trip to Disney World -- although they all agreed that they will be perfectly happy with a big beach trip if Disney is not in the budget by the end of the summer.  I also promised $100 to anyone who went above and beyond and read 5000 pages.  To my pleasant surprise, the bribery has been enough to give me a good, hour long quiet reading time during the middle of almost every day for the last week and a half!

{Dang you.  Hahaha. This is Ethan's tracking sheet, in case you couldn't tell.}

 

Verifying all the pages are adding up.  He's right in the thick of A Series of Unfortunate Events as we speak.

So far Ethan and Grace are actually on track to make it to 5000!  They have both been dutifully plugging along with the required 85 pages a day to make it to their goal.  Of course, we've had to make some tweaks along the way -- Diary of a Wimpy Kid no longer counts, both because they've already read them and because they're mostly pictures -- and, consequently, picture books are no longer valid fare for our summer reading program, either.   

Grace's sheet.  She was the first to make it to 1000. 

The back -- where she keeps track until 100 then flips it over and colors in the bubble. 

 

{Random shot from Grace's room.  Don't you love what she's done with the place?  Hahaha.}

In the last 10 days, Grace has read Bridge to Terabithia, The Great Gilly Hopkins, 4th Grade Rats, 2 Diary of a Wimpy Kid books, Esio Trot, a few pages of Inkheart, and a few pages of Anne of Green Gables.  (I'm still not succeeding in winning her over)

  

We decided that The Book of Mormon counts as one page per column since the print is so small and the text is more dense.

Sophie started reading Wonder at the beginning of the month and was really loving it, but by this past Sunday had fallen a bit behind her mark of 50 pages a day.  After much weeping and wailing, she finally calmed down after I told her she could read 2 Wimpy Kid books as well to catch up with the older two.  

As for the little ones, Jane is not technically required to read 3000 pages -- obviously, she can't read -- but I have been making a more concerted effort to read to her as well these days and (in her words) she is "obsessed" with Fancy Nancy. With Alex, I have definitely been stepping up my game.  To be honest, up until a few weeks ago, I was hardly ever reading aloud to just the poor little Lover Boy.  We have remedied that, and now he holds me hostage at every nap time and bedtime until I read all "his books" multiple times after which he makes me put all the books out in the hall. Hahahaha. I don't know why, but he gets seriously freaked out if I leave the books in the room with him. It's hilarious. He's rather partial to Kevin Henkes books right now, but Goodnight Moon has fast become a favorite along with an oldie in the form of baby David.

And there you have it. To finish off the post, the results are in and Sophie is the winner!  "Run as fast as you want but don't trip" will be the family shirt for the summer.  Status update complete. :)