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At the beginning of the summer I devised a plan. The only real school work I was having the girls do this summer was reading. They needed to read 30 minutes every day. That’s it. It doesn’t sound like much, but sometimes camp gets in the way, and sometimes playing with friends gets in the way and sometimes The Brady Bunch gets in the way. I didn’t want to be the nagging Mama always reminding them of their minutes so I knew I needed to find a carrot. Find SOMETHING to motivate them. In our house it is devices that motivate us. (Just for the record, though, the girls have all had to pay for all or part of their devices and Kate doesn’t own an iOS device yet because we don’t think she is quite old enough yet to be responsible for it.)
So I devised an evil plan. If the girls all read 20 hours (which works out to 30 minutes a day, including weekends) by the end of July I would pay for HALF of the $80 Kindle for each of them. Yup, you got that right. Not only have I motivated them to read to earn their desired prize, but this device will encourage them to read MORE after they get it. Mwa ha ha! Best. evil. plan. ever!
The girls were over the moon about this idea and set to work right away. They easily beat the deadline by 10 days and have been enjoying the free Kindle books we can check out from the library. This is perfect because Kate reads through her books in two days and never has any new ones to read. It is also perfect for Ellie because she is super picky about her books and gets bored quickly. By using the online library she has a constant source of free books to pick from. We love that wireless delivery.
(Just as an aside you may have noticed that I really haven’t mentioned Jill here. She already had a Kindle that she bought with birthday money. So I am going to contribute her Kindle portion to her savings).
Twenty years from now, when my girls read this chapter in the blog books I wonder what they are going to think. Is this going to look as tame as the Brady Bunch capers or am I still going to be the mastermind behind this brilliant evil plan? Either way it will be good for a laugh. And the fact that the girls have read about it in the blog books means that they are still reading! I’m going with the mastermind angle.