BookIT Enrollment

We've been participating in BookIT every year.  It is available for homeschoolers and enrollment is open now!  I get the newsletter, Bound Together to stay up to date on the goings ons there.  Chase's two favorite things, books and pizza!  We didn't enter the contest last year, they had a $30K scholarship for their 30th anniversary.  We made the goals, but I didn't get a sticker for his passport each time.  Oh well.  This year there is another contest, "Crazy Little Thing Called Reading" giveaway.  Hopefully, we'll get all our stickers and sent off in time.  They're offering a 100 book library plus a Kindle Voyager eReader to participants.  We have a Nook, but it would be awesome for Chase to have his own eReader just for his selections.

We plan to donate some books to our local library.  We won a lot of books he wasn't interested in from a comic book contest last year and this would be something useful to the community.  We thought of trying to sell them, but it is a bit of a hassle to try to do.

BookIT! has great teacher resources including a reading app.  Chase really enjoyed it last year, though we didn't log all of his hours.  He reads so much!  It is hard to remember to run the app.  But that's okay, you can add more to their totals from the teacher dashboard.

Chase's current top picks for reading:  Every Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Minecraft novels, Big Nate series, Full Metal Alchemist manga, and he still loves Stick Dog.

He's getting better at picking out selections from the library.  But I'll make sure to grab a chapter book if his selections aren't as heavy reading.  This week I chose The Misadventures of Edgar & Allan Poe, Book One: The Tell-Tale Start, hopefully, this book will introduce him a little to one of my favorite classic authors as well as bring in some modern humor and enjoyment.  I have yet to read it, but this will be part of our plan for the week.  I saw a brilliant Chapter Book Review pin.  You make a matchbook fold for your folder or interactive journal for each chapter and summarize the story and draw a picture for each chapter.  I will have to give this a go and post up pictures when we're done.

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Happy 30th BookIt!

BookIt! has begun and what an awesome start.  Chase's goal is 20 minutes per day for the month.  He has been rocking that!

October's Reading List

Finished reading

• 
  Star Wars: Jedi Academy, Return of the Padawan (Book 2)
  (he's read this 2 ½ times since Monday!)
  
• 
  Broken (Star Wars: Legacy, Vol. 1)
  

In Progress

• 
  The Maze of Bones (39 Clues, No. 1)
  

To read

• The 39 Clues Series Books 2, 3 and 4
• Molly Moon's Hypnotic Time Travel Adventure
  

Read Aloud Books

• Beowulf - A Hero's Tale Retold
  by James Rumford
• Tales of King Arthur
  by James Riordan

We usually get close to 10 books from the library every two weeks.  He reads most of them by himself.  Sometimes in one week!  I want him to start writing book reviews on DOGO Books instead of just typical book reports.  I think he would enjoy it more and it won't have the stigma of the word 'book report' hanging over it.

So, BookIt! is doing several things for their 30th Anniversary.  I don't know if there is still time for sign ups if your school hasn't already.  Students who have read each month of the program and collected all their passport tickets will be eligible for a $30,000 scholarship.  Also, added bonus for Alumni, they have a BookIt! for adults this year!  So, Read your heart out!

We've downloaded the new BookIt! app on the Google Play Store for our Android Tablet.  He can earn coins as he keeps track of his reading progress, and spend those coins on his dragon avatar.  It's an exciting and fun way to engage your young readers so they can see the rewards.  They earn 1 coin per minute, so the more the read, the more they can spend.

Chase really loved the special book video, Surprise! written by Jeff Kinney to celebrate BookIt!'s 30th Anniversary.  I added the Vimeo app to our tablet as well.