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.
- 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)
- Finish a chapter book (age appropriate)
- 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.)
- Cook me Something New (from another country, region, or just something they've never tried)
- 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!
- 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)
- 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!
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Happy reading ! This will inspire me to make my boy read, no problem with the girl. Well yes she reads faster than her shadow. Happy summer too.
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