Race to the Space Police

The new challenge is on and this time it's for Jensen. Mike challenged him to read 50 books and he could have a new toy. During the trip to Toys R Us, the challenge quickly changed. Jensen talked his Daddy into a bigger Lego set, a Space Police Lunar Limo, if he read 100 books. Wow! I'm happy to hear that Jensen upped the challenge, but wow! Jensen really struggles with reading so I was REALLY surprised by his enthusiasm for this adventure.

Reading with the boys is my passion so I had to set up a process to make all of this happen and record the books. The first step was to let him pick out the books. He quickly dug around the house and came up with 50 books at a variety of levels....all his choice.

The next thing we put in place was how he would keep track of the challenge. Jensen needs some work on writing, too, so I decided to get a special notebook and have him number, write the name of each book, and a little something about the book. This didn't deter the excitement level, I think it only increased it. Jensen was excited that he would keep track of this challenge.

So, it was finally time to get down to the business of reading books. One of the issues that Jensen has with reading is learning new words. If you give him the word, he can't remember it the next time he sees it. I started writing down the words on index cards...I'll tell you more about that later...and on we went. We read Biscuit and the Baby, Biscuit's New Friend, Biscuit Goes to School and then we came to a book about Houdini, a chapter book.

Once again, Jensen surprised me. He dove into the book and began reading his first chapter book. Although, we had a pile of words to learn, night after night, we plugged away through that book. I've seen much improvement in his fluency and he started to remember the new words the next time he saw them, at least a few of them. In three weeks, he has read 20 books including the chapter book and we only counted that as one. Maybe we should have counted it as eight, but we didn't.

As Jensen was packing up for a trip to visit his grandparents, I decided that I would give him a break from the reading and not push it since he was doing so good. He came to me and asked if he could take his notebook and of course I said yes. That was worth a big smile....I think he thought I would say no. I told him that any book he read to his Papa or Coco counted.

I'm so happy that Jensen is excited about reading because I do believe that if you can read, you can do anything. I learned to juggle by reading a book! I can't was to see what Jensen learns from reading.

To the Castle...

Learning to tie shoes is one of the little, but important skills to learn in life. Marshall, who struggles with his fine motor skills, consequently finds shoe tying a challenge. Mike decided to provide some motivation to help Marshall master the art of shoe tying...what a great Dad! So, he took Marshall to Walmart and let him pick out a really cool toy.

After returning home they wrote an agreement stating that Marshall would receive the toy, which resided on top of the frig, when he had tied his shoes 100 times.

I think Mike was a little disappointed that Marshall only had two "tie" marks after a week. When Mike asked Marshall if he wanted to tie shoes Marshall said no. I was successful a few times by telling Marshall it was time to tie shoes, adding a few more tick marks. Whatever we tried, we just couldn't get him moving with this challenge.

Marshall found the turning point in his motivation the day after a family trip to the movies to watch Shrek Forever After. I told Marshall it was time to tie shoes. A significant time later he returned with a pile of shoes and proceeded with his shoe tying fest. Five minutes later he had racked up twelve successful ties. The secret to his success was a few lines from Shrek where

Fiona said, "the dragon goes under the bridge, through the tunnel and to the castle to save the princess." Can I just say that Shrek Forever After is my new favorite movie? It really was a fun movie. Regardless, I still can't believe a few lines in a movie made that much of a difference, but it did!

Marshall quickly tied his shoes many times and even enlisted the help of

his older brother. They made an assembly line. As soon as Marshall tied a shoe, he tossed it over his shoulder, yelled "shoe waiting" and Jensen untied it. Then, Jensen added it back to the line up. What a great team!

One of my favorite parts about being a mom is watching the moments when the light comes on, their brains click, and the boys learn something new. One never knows when it's going to happen, but life is pretty

amazing when it does. I have to say I am pretty proud of Marshall for his hard work. I have to give props to Jensen for being such a wonderful and supportive big brother. Finally, way to go Mike! You came up with a brilliant idea! Not only did you motivate Marshall to learn how to tie his

shoes. You taught him about setting a goal and reaching it. You also taught him about delayed gratification...something that is difficult to learn in our instant society.