Gumball Challenge

Sadly, we will not be able to make it to Wilton Library's awesome summer reading program. So I made up my own. I saw a glimpse of one on someone elses blog, probably through Ginny's Yarn Along maybe a week or two ago? I thought it was an amazing idea.

What I did was draw a giant gumball machine. I then painted it, laid contact paper over the ball and filled it with over 300 round stickers. On the bottom I wrote the prize: Empty the Gumball Machine and win a brownie sundae!. Together the kiddos will empty the gumball by completing one (or more) of seven challenges.When they complete a challenge then can remove a sticker. When the machine is empty we will choose a day that most of the kids will be here and have a great big ice cream eating bash! Here are our list of challenges.

1. Read for 10mins at home or 30mins at daycare (at daycare there is a mandatory read or lay/sit quietly time for 30mins, I didn't want it to be too easy to empty the machine)
2. Finish a chapter book (age appropriate) 
3. Tell me Five Fascinating Facts (about anything: apples to ninjas to star trek and zebras. If they read about it and it wasn't something obvious ie: sharks swim in water, sharks eat fish, ect it counts.)
4. Cook me Something New (from another country, region, or just something they've never tried)
5. Help someone else to Read (we have a lot of littles in the daycare and sometimes we can't stop to read to them. Also, if they are reading to a little it there is no minimum time requirement, two seconds count! 
6. Write a story or comic strip (I told the boys no bathroom talk or nudity in their pictures. I also said that they could retell a familiar story: Harry Potter, Sonic, ect)
7. Read to learn (any size book, any reading level, any non-fiction)

Those were my challenges, but I'm sure you can think of others! As a side note the librarian was here (she runs a program where she brings her story time to day-cares along with 15 books that stay for two weeks!) and she said it was great. I told the boys today that if the machine was emptied I'd fill it again and let them empty it again.

Today I was given a comic strip about Sonic after rest time and the other boy read all day. I'll be letting him rip a bunch of stickers off in the morning.

Oh, the other thing I did was make a little mark under some of the stickers for a special prize. If one of the marks are exposed then everyone will get a Popsicle!

Happy Summer and Happy Reading!