5 Days of Crafting: Day #4 - Reading Chart and Journal

As you know, I am a HUGE reader.  I will read anything I can get my hands on.  My Marine - yeah....he's a reader too but he's more into the sports and war books - which is ok because at least our daughters still see him reading.  (Although he does have a bad habit of flipping through the book and reading random chapters.  Drives me up a freakin' wall!!)

I like to think I'm raising readers.  Nani is already reading at a first grade level and Nudgie can frequently be seen buried by surrounded by books in our little reading corner.

So, for spring, I decided to make a reading chart for the girls.  We did one last summer, so I just recycled the poster board and used the back.  I had some bulletin board edging leftover from another project and just reused that.  I also had some blank flowers that we'll be using to write down the names of the books that we read.

In addition to the reading chart, I created a little reading journal for Nani.  I found something very similar here, but in order to download it, you had to subscribe to their website and I just didn't want to pay $23.00 for a subscription.  So I made my own.  The reading journal has places for her to write the the name of the book, the author and illustrator, some words from the book, her favorite part and a section for her to draw a picture from the book.  Almost like a mini book report!  (I did it in Word on legal sized paper and printed it on both sides.)

My plan is to have her pick one book a week that she'll write about.  My hope is that it will help improve her vocabulary, writing skills, and comprehension.

If you like the idea and would like to use it, feel free to download page 1 here and page 2 here!  I won't charge a subscription fee....but I do ask that you please just link back to my post!

I plan on starting tomorrow since Nani's on Spring Break this week.  Stay tuned for our first week of reading!