Surviving At Home

Most kids are strongly encouraged by both parents and teachers to read over the summer break. For some, it’s heaven on earth to visit the library and come away with dozens of books at a time. For others, it’s like pulling teeth without any novacain.

To help make reading a little more exciting, Scholastic Books offers an online summer reading log so your children can keep track of how many books they’ve read and how many minutes they’ve read each day. The best part is for every 4 books that a child logs in, 1 book will be donated to Reading is Fundamental.

A parent has to register to get the child a user name and password. Then they are assigned to a team and there’s a big book meter showing how many books the participating children have logged already. They’re goal is 200,000 by the end of summer so hopefully your kids will be interested in helping reach that goal.

My 5-year-old is in love with this idea and the graphics are drawn more for the younger ages. She loves sitting at the keyboard inputting her book titles and has set herself a goal that we’ll read 4 books every single day so she can donate a book everyday. Very easy considering the level of books we’re reading together. It’s a piece of cake to read 4 books in 30 minutes and she’s also learning a life lesson about compassion and sharing with others.

My 10-year-old is much less enthused. She’s an excellent reader and ever since kindergarten she has been reading above her grade level; she just doesn’t like to do it, especially during the summer when she wants to escape everything related to school. Being that she loves computer games, I thought the Scholastic site would help get her interested in this task but she was turned off by being on the “Hornets” team and by the bright, child-like graphics. Never mind the fact that she could be responsible for donating books. At her age, if she finishes one large chapter book this summer it will be an accomplishment.

Summer reading lists abound on the internet and no doubt your local library has their own list. I’m a list kind of gal, so even as a kid I liked crossing off books from the library’s list or seeing my own list of books grow. I was always great about growing my list but not so great at recalling what my books were about. My husband teases me now that all I ever need are 3 books on my shelf because I’ll just forget the ending once I’m finshed and I can reread them! He’s not far from the truth.

When creating a game plan for keeping your children busy during the summer months, don’t be fooled into paying outrageous prices for specialty summer camps. Instead, I like to look for fun activities that require minimal or no cost and put those on my calendar first.

Your local library is a fabulous resource. Many will host a summer reading program or contest for school-age children and they usually have suggested summer reading lists for different age groups. This is a great way to encourage your student to continue reading and to also challenge himself with harder books or different genres.

Our library continues their storytime hours during the summer and there’s usually a waiting list because those sessions are so popular. Among their other varied activities are: craft classes, magic shows, Meet the Author nights, and American Girl activities, just to name a few. I wouldn’t be surprised if they have a Harry Potter event planned for when the new book comes out.

If your library has limited or no programs planned, why not suggest a few? Or volunteer to organize a particular activity that you believe in. It’s a wonderful way to delve into community service, you would provide a service to others in your town, and you would teach your children a valuable lesson about helping others.