Sunday, January 22, 2012

975 to go ...

Paper chain links that is. We're working on our Family Fun List #34 - make a 1000 paper chain. Since we are a family with 5 able paper chain makers, it probably wouldn't take us that long to just go ahead and make a huge paper chain. While it would be fun and we can marvel at the magnificence of 1000 links, it's not all that challenging. So we're kicking it up a notch and writing on each link the title of a book that either Amy has read by herself or one that has been read to Rose & Heidi &/or Amy. Basically each link represents a children's book read in some fashion. So far we have 25 links completed. Woo hoo!
I didn't come up with this idea right away on Jan 1st, and we really have just started this past week. I think we will need to step it up a notch on the reading to make up the time, but I believe that we can get it done. Here are our chains so far. (Since taking the photo I have added one more link.)

I am currently letting them make 2 separate chains that we will join together later. Mostly so that Amy can see her reading chain on it's own and track her personal reading progress. I am going to have her write the book titles on her own links from now on for the handwriting practice, this week  we have both written the titles.

The only hiccup in the master plan is figuring out how to keep the duplicates out of the chain. The littles tend to want to have the same books read over and over so I don't know what to do about that. So far it hasn't been an issue since it's only been a week. The plan is not to read 1000 different books, just 1000 books so I might not worry about the duplicates and just try to encourage variety with trips to the library etc. Anyone have any suggestions about the handling of duplicates? If someone has an idea for an easy system I can keep the duplicates out. Once we go over 100 books I know I won't be able to remember which ones are on the chain and which ones aren't. My memory is good, just not that good - there's a lot of other stuff floating around in there! I also don't want to skim through a list of 100's of books each time we read one either.

Comments & Suggestions welcome!

3 comments:

  1. If you have an Excel spreadsheet of your titles, you can keep it sorted in alphabetical order, and easily check / confirm if you have already read a specific title :) Robin

    Reply
  2. Personally I don't think I would worry about duplicates. Reading the same books over and over is actually good for very little ones - it teaches them a lesson in permanence (that the words in the book mean something, and that they stay the same). It's supposed to be just as good (if not better) for their literacy at this early stage than reading a different book every time. Obviously you know what's best for your family, but personally I reckon let them get away with duplicates, and then if you hit 1000 too quickly, you can always start another chain!

    Reply
    Replies
    1. I agree. I don't think I will worry about the duplicates

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