Don’t Sweat the Details – Just Have Fun!
Anytime you hear words like “challenge” or “contest,” you or your kids might feel like you have to adhere to strict rules and guidelines to participate, and carve out special time each day to make it work.
Take it from us: that’s not what the Summer Reading Challenge is about.
If you’re a busy, always-on-the-go family, don’t think that you don’t have time to participate in the Challenge. Listen to an audiobook or sing-along playlist while you take your kids to school; let them follow along with the recipe while you cook dinner; have them read the nutritional labels and brand names while you grocery shop. There are lots of opportunities to read during your day without going out of your way.
And when it comes to things like logging your minutes or keeping track of how long you’re reading, don’t stress over it. If your kids read for roughly 9.5 minutes, go ahead and say 10. Don’t have time to record your time as soon as you’re finished, or even that day? No problem – do it at the end of the week, or whenever’s most convenient for you.
And maybe you’re feeling a little intimidated by the 600-minute goal to complete the challenge. Please, don’t be. It might seem big, but think about it like this: if your child reads every day from now until August 21, you’d only have to log roughly 17 minutes per day and they complete the Challenge (and you can log any minutes you’ve read since May 3)!
This is very much your Challenge, so sign up online, or get a paper reading log, and start approaching the Challenge the way that works best for you and your family, today!
One parting note: be sure to give you and your kiddos points for reading through this post, and thanks for sticking with us to the end!