Reading Hour

Summertime brings lots of fun and lots of restless children.  Reese and Tucker are used to going to school and having crazy military-like structure.  So you can imagine what my house can be like in the summer if we are home all day.  They are bouncing off the walls and running around like wild Indians.  Tucker especially.  That boy needs a playground about twice a day. 

For my sanity, I started a Reading Hour among a few other structured activities throughout the day.  Here are the rules:

1.  You pick the books you want to "read."
2.  You must be quiet and still (not silent, but at least library-type voices).
3.  You must be on your nap mat (or at least near it).
4.  You must "read" until the timer goes off.  If you finish the books you have, you must pick out more.
5.  You must put your books and nap mat away when Reading Hour is over. 

Tucker informed me that he couldn't read... a lame attempt to get out of Reading Hour today.  I encourage them to use their imaginations and make a up stories to go with the pictures at least until they learn how to read this year. What?  They are 4 now... I should expect them to learn to read this year right?!

Reese had a much bigger pile of books to go through than Tucker.  She was eating up every minute of Reading Hour today.

Tucker kept asking me when the timer was going to go off and preferred to play "superman" with his book.  Gonna have to train this boy.

Rylan did Pilates while she read...

And a little peek-a-boo....

The best part about Reading Hour... Mom gets to read too! Love it! We've started at 30 minutes which was not nearly long enough for Reese but a tortuously long time for Tucker. My goal is to be up to an actual HOUR by the end of the summer (well, by the end of the 3 weeks I get off in the summer). We'll see how that goes... but we're off to a pretty good start.