I’m just sharing a little goal I have so I feel a little more accountable. I have a goal this year to read 2013 books to my kids. I’m talking about children’s books. Repeats count, so if I read The Hungry Caterpillar 100 times, so be it. That’s about 7 books a day. That’s doable, but it will be fun to record them and see what we come up with.
That is a great goal! Maybe I should join you… I’m so slack at reading aloud to the kids and I’m always saying that I need to read them books because I KNOW how important it is. I especially want to make an effort to read some of the classic novels to my 5 year old but I’m thinking we wouldn’t make 2013 of them!
Are you posting your list as you read them?
I can give a monthly update if you want. Reading children’s stories is easy for me, but I have started Narnia and Little House with my 5-year-old, read about half of it, and quit, so I’m going to make 12 of the 2013 be a bigger book. That would be great progress for us. Most of the books will be read-in-one-sitting books.
Great Goal Tamsyn!
I am posting a link to one of the threads for the 2012 reading challenge started WaterDreamer for those looking for more ideas as well, especially on modifying for the age group, etc.
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/our-1500-book-challenge!!/
http://forum.brillkids.com/general-discussion-b5/2012-book-challenge/
This was a HUGE success for us! We joined last year, but (as many people did!) modified our rules to fit the age of my LO and such…I actually ended up purchasing a lovely, bound journal and just recorded the titles we read each nap and bedtime, as well as duration of reading time each day. This helped as we progressed to more challenging books and chapter books…and now I have a lovely gift for my daughter detailing her love of reading, favorite books, progress, and milestones :yes:
We have decided to do this every year as it IS extra incentive to have that goal and so much fun to record!
Several other BK members kept lists and some even posted them on their blogs. KristaG kept a great list with her five-year-old daughter and her monthly posts on her blog are a great source for books as well:
http://www.teachingbabytoread.com/
Also, a thread with some great book ideas, especially for more advanced picture books. Even now that Alex is reading some chapter books, I still LOVE beautifully-written picture books for challenging vocabulary! As they tend to be written for parents to read TO their children, I think the language and vocabulary are so much less stilted and basic than many chapter books written for very young readers. 
http://forum.brillkids.com/teaching-your-child-to-read/picture-books-for-advanced-readers/
Our reading challenge from 2012 took on so much more meaning when I made a startling discovery at Xmas time…for most, if not all, BK members, reading to and with our children daily is as much a constant as eating and sleeping. We happened to be at a holiday lights festival sponsored in part by a major local grocery chain, and they had set up a massive cooperative effort where every child that attended was to receive a free book ( there were THOUSANDS of patrons nightly). A great idea…
Painted on the side of the huge semi-trailer was a goal for the 2013 year:
“Please Join Us in our Goal by Reading To Your Children Three Books Per Week”
:ohmy: :ohmy: :ohmy: 
It absolutely broke my heart.
Hmmm… How to modify this one. My oldest and I are now working on chapter books, and really only read one smaller book a day for his home reading for school. So 2013 books would not be reasonable for him. But now for my little almost 8 month old, I really need to start getting in the habit of reading just to him. Yes he does join in a lot of the time while his brother and I are reading, but not every day. So Baby Z and I are in. Of course due to his age these books will likely be smaller books, but I’m sure come Dec 2013 he will be able to sit for longer books.
How about 2013 minutes. It is not much spread over a year. But it is a nice fun goal.
One of my friends said she would modify the goal for her older kid by counting minutes instead of books. She will log the minutes each day and celebrate when the get to 2013, probably well before the end of the year.
I admit I stole the idea from what you were all doing last year. I regretted not doing it, so I’m jumping in this year.
I agree, how sad that a lofty goal would be 3 books a week. How sad that there are so many homes with less than 10 books. I would love to cuddle those children and read them a story.
Hmm, I would love to join in but we don’t have that many English books :wacko: I read to my daughter exclusively in English ( forein language for us) and the libraries don’t hold many forein books here. I am trying to buy book bundles of ebay and other places as well but that is getting expensive as the books are getting bigger and havier lol
After giving our bookshelf another look I feel like I would need a hug too :unsure:
Or do you think I should brake the rule of reading in one language only?
If you know could you please post links with downloadable books?
I’m in too - thanks for the push!
lelask - you can make up your own rules. I could books in any language as, to me, what matters is engaging with books, having a lovely time together and building vocabulary.
Lelask, I’m sending you some online hugs. Maybe this site will help too: http://www.wegivebooks.org/
Good goal! I know I couldn’t read that much though :biggrin:
That is a nice goal, Tamsyn. I like how you are tying it in to the year. We just finished our reading challenge for 2012 and it was very interesting. I like being accountable for things. It helps me stick to something better. I joined the challenge last year just to see what we read in a year. I learned what inspires my daughter to read more and less throughout the year. We really increased our reading as the year went on but did not do so well the last month. It looks like we read 1,562 books in 2012. Of course, I did not count books that we read more than once in a month and we did read chapter books too. I realize it takes some effort to make sure that we have good books on hand.
I read The Book Whisperer in 2011 and she said she keeps a list of books she reads each year. I liked the idea, so I kept a list last year as well as my 5 year old. I am not sure what our goal is this year. I did buy her a new pretty book to record what she reads. She said she wants to keep a list. My dilemma is that we really need to move on to chapter books, so our list would be quite small. I would like to be disciplined to read to my kids every day. This is not something I did last year, even though we read a lot. I am not sure if most of you feel the same, but no matter how much I read, it never seems like enough.
I love picture books also. I don’t know when I will be ready to give them up. For now, my kids still like them.
On a side note, I discovered the poet Jack Prelutsky this year when we read I’ve Lost My Hippopotamus. I have just now ventured into his other books as well. This is such a great way to learn vocabulary. I am amazed at the amount of new vocabulary my kids are exposed to through his poems. He is clever and witty and I just love his work. I laugh every time I read them and my kids have even committed some to memory.
Lelask, do you have a Kindle or a Nook? You can download free books from Amazon or Barnes and Noble if you have one. That is an idea.
If anyone wants to recommend their favorite kid’s books that would be great too. :biggrin:
Great!
We’re in! I’ll close the other thread.
What a great idea! I really need to get focused on our reading together time - it has become frustratingly bedtime-only recently and I want to get out of that habit. Focusing on a goal might just persuade me :laugh:
Lelask, you can download kindle for PC for free, so you don’t even need to have a kindle to get free books. Also, there are often good chapter books or fairy story books to download from http://www.homeschoolfreebie.wholesomechildhood.com/
My dd’s school has a reading list you turn in every month. This has helped me make sure I get more reading in. The only problem is they don’t count the encyclopedias and I like to read from the DK and Usborne encyclopedias like the human body one, the science or animal ones etc. I want to do even better this year than I did last year with reading with the kids. I don’t know I can’t do 7 books per kid since I am trying to get the older kids to listen to more chapter books and we don’t finish those in a day. I didn’t do EL with my 6 year old and didn’t start reading instruction until she was nearly 5. She has made good improvements and I am trying to get her to read the books she can handle and read the stuff that is above her reading level to her. My 2 and 4 year old are not reading on their own yet. They have some reading skills but can’t read books. I do read to them a lot and have started chapter books with my 4 year old. I am trying to get the kids quality chapter books and weeding out the fluff. I hope sometime this year my 4 year is able to read some books but I will have to search out stuff with big print. He doesn’t need glasses yet but he will eventually and he just struggles seeing small print.
This is a goal for myself- I’m not keeping a separate list for each kid. Most of the time they are all listening anyway, but I can’t keep track of attendance.
im in too. this is very good idea. so that v can keep the track
We’re in! We didn’t do this last year. I was sure would never keep track and we read all the time. Things have gotten hectic and we are reading less so this is good accountability for me. It is a good practice for me to get a bit more organized too.
Lesak, I am in a similar situation as you in that I am teaching my son a foreign language that is not my native language. It is a priority for me for him to learn that language, but I still read to him in both languages. I have read that when a child learns his first language well it is easier for them to learn other languages. So especially since Spanish books are not as easy to come by (our other language) I definitely read to him in both English and Spanish. It won’t hurt his Spanish to hear English and it is possible that it will help. You can always read all the books you can in English first and then if you still have time read books in your native language. I can’t see how that would harm anything.
PS- my mental math estimate was way off. On average you need only read about 5.52 books a day on average to reach 2,013. That makes the goal a little nicer.
That sounds doable! I am thinking about joining in, and recording our progress :yes: to keep myself accountable .
We actually read more then 5 books a day, but some of them we re-read, some are longer chapter books ( so I like the idea of counting chapters :yes: ) or Children’s Bible for example – it is the same book, but we read different chapters every day…
Lelask, I need to get back to my computer, where I have a list of websites you can read or download free or really cheap English books, once I find it I will post it here!