"Let's Make a Deal."

On Friday morning, Lincoln came to me and said, "Mom, how about we make a deal? If I read 20 chapter books, you buy me a new book." Of course I took him up on his deal. :) And he spent the morning selecting chapter books that I approved of (I wanted the books to be in his reading level range, and I didn't want the list to be stacked with fantasy), writing down what order he wanted to read them in, and generally planning how he wanted to go about his task. These are the books he came up with:

His plans are making me giggle a little bit, but I love them, and plan on just sitting back and watching this all unfold, with him in control of it. He plans on reading 2 1/2 books per day. Also, since he got 10 Peeps in his Easter basket, he plans on eating one Peep after every two books that he reads as a reward.

Ivan decided he wanted in on this action as well, so he and I picked out 20 books at his reading level. But he's not as intense about it at the moment as Linc. And I'm not pushing. This is their thing, not mine. I'm throwing this under the category of project-based homeschooling (the same as Lincoln's robot project awhile back) where the kids are in charge of the learning and doing, and the parent just facilitates.

We also agreed that they would do an oral book report for every book that they read. My good friend and neighbor has a writing/reading blog, where she shares the things she's writing, and reviews things she's reading. As part of that, she has her kids do book review videos. I LOVE this idea! So, I'm borrowing it from her. I think doing book reports orally will help my kids be able to share all of their ideas and thoughts about the books they are reading without getting bogged down in the writing process. Sometimes (at this age especially) the writing process gets long, and they get frustrated with it, and their book reports end up being, "It was great. I liked it." And they don't explore what they liked about it, or why they would recommend it, or what the funny parts were, or things like that. Right now, I'd like to get them talking and thinking more about the books they are reading. We can work on writing about them later. And since my kids love to watch themselves on camera afterwards, my friend's idea to record the book reviews is genius! I will post both boys' book reviews as I get them. They accumulated quite a few over the weekend.

The Littles by John Lawrence Peterson

Beowolf: Usborne Young Reading series

 How Oliver Olson Changed the World by Claudia Mills

 The Adventures of Sinbad the Sailor: Usborne Young Reading Series

 7x9= Trouble by Claudia Mills

 The Call of the Wild by Jack London (Children's classic edition)

 The Water Horse by Dick King-Smith

 Jason and the Golden Fleece: Usborne Young Reading series