September 15: Audrey's Reading Chart

Audrey and I were super excited for her to participate in the summer reading program at the library this summer.  Early in June, we went to the library, picked up her stuff, and put her chart on the refrigerator to keep track of how much we read this summer.  Audrey was so excited about being able to earn prizes for reading books (or in her case, listening to books).

Then, we had a crazy summer and the chart was mostly ignored.  Finally, about a day before the library's program was ending, Audrey found the chart and got super excited again about reading books and earning prizes.  By then, it was a little too late to participate.

I felt bad, so I decided we could just make our own chart and pick our own prizes.  I made a chart with 100 spaces, and she got to put one sticker on a space every time we read a book (except for books before bedtime, we always read two books before bed each night and we did not count those in our total). 

I let Audrey pick her prize.  That was kind of brave as she could have picked something really expensive.  But she didn't.  She chose a Sleeping Beauty doll, which costs about $10.  I thought that was a very reasonable request. 

Because 100 books seems like a huge amount to a three year old, I added in some smaller prizes along the way to help keep her interested and motivated.  After 20 books, she got her very own slush from Sonic.  After 50 books, she got her very own ice cream.  (We make her share often, so getting her very own treat is a big deal!)

We completed her chart this week.  It took us about six weeks to read 100 books.  That averages out to about 2.5 books per day...plus we read two more at night before bed.  They say you are supposed to read 30 minutes a day to your kids.  I don't think it took us 30 minutes to read 4-5 books each day, so I guess we should be reading more.  But I felt like 100 books was a fairly big accomplishment!

Here is Audrey with her beloved prize!