The crew's homeschool group is having a reading contest in correlation with the Iditarod dog sled race.  The student picks a musher and then "races" the musher to Nome.

 

The mushers are racing 1112 miles from Anchorage to Nome.  For the readers, each page they read equals 1 mile.  So, they have to read 1112 pages.  It started on March 1, the day the Iditarod started.  The goal is to read their pages before their musher gets to Nome.  Even if they don't beat the musher, there is a prize for even finishing the pages.  They have until the end of March.  The only real rule is that the books must be at or above their reading level, to be determined by Mom and Dad.

 

So, my crew is doing it this year, for the first time.  Last year they said NO WAY.  But this year we are doing Sonlight and there is tons of reading anyway.  And of course we count those pages, too.

 

This is a huge thing for my crew.  They don't particularly care to read.  They go in spurts.  In general, the large amount of reading they do for school pretty well hits their limit.  So this is a stretch. For S, especially. 

 

S reads like Hubby.  As little as possible.  He gets overwhelmed by long books with tiny print.  For instance, we once checked out the Lord of the Rings series in one book.  He couldn't read it.  But we got the books individually and he loved them.  Go figure.

 

C reads like I do.  If he gets into a book, he can go for ages without coming up for air.  So he's doing well, as long as we say "no video games until X amount of pages or time".  If video games are an option, the book disappears.

 

They went all weekend without reading a thing.  So they got pretty far behind their mushers.  Of course, the real goal is to finish before the end of the March.  But, I'm afraid they'll be discouraged if they don't beat their musher.  So, for the first part of this week, we are having reading days for school. 

As of last night,  S has read 671 pages, C has read 693 pages.  I'm really proud of them because most of these pages are in books that are above their reading levels.  Today they've put the "big books" aside and are reading on some smaller, lower level books.  (not below their level, but AT their level)  I think they are going to make it!!