Tuesday, May 26, 2015

Announcement: The Great Harry Potter Summer Read Along



I have a little book club with my daughters. It is just the three of us. 
We call ourselves the Bookworm Club. 
They have been getting more and more interested in my Harry Potter obsession (they are ages 9 and 5) and have asked that we read the books together.
We are only a few chapters away from being done with our current book so we are planning on starting Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's stone (or Harry Potter and the Philosophers' stone) this weekend. 
We will be reading through all seven books and in between each book they can watch the movie if they want to. 
Then when we are done with all 7 books and 8 movies we are going to have a fun little party. 
I thought it would be fun to issue a challenge to any of you who might want to read along. 


If you do, let me know in the comments! 
I will check back on here after we finish each book to let you know what they think of it and you can share your progress as well. 
We will be going slower than we would if it was just me reading by myself but I am still hoping to get through all of them by the end of the summer or at least by mid-fall. 
I hope you will revisit Harry's world with us!

 And while speaking of the books, here are two sets of UK covers that I absolutely love!



I think they are amazing.  I really love these white ones.

*When was the last time you read through the Harry Potter series? 
*Are you going to read it this year?

6 comments:

The Kings said...

The last time was before we had our Harry Potter party in Kenosha. I am really getting the bug to read them again...and have started watching the movies once a month. My last one was the Goblet of Fire.

Cheryl said...

Do you think you will read along then?

Donna said...

This is such a fun idea. I wish John would get into Harry Potter, but he hasn't yet. He's not into reading (sob).

Cheryl said...

My girls go through stages of being into reading and not being into reading too. It is hard because I want them to love it as much as I do!
The fact that Maddy has become really good at reading lately kind of lit a fire under them both. Plus I started a bedtime rule that a woman I knew in Wisconsin told me she did with her kids. Unless we have something special going on or it is the weekend, they have to be in bed at 7. But if they are reading they can stay up until 8 and then I come in and read a few chapters before putting them to sleep at 8:30. It has helped get them both back into reading a lot. They really want to stay up later!
Plus every summer I do some kind of reading program with them. A few summers ago Abi got a timing bookmark and for every 10 hours of reading she did, she got to pick a date with me or Doug. Two summers ago we did the summer of 100 books. She picked out a My little Pony doll she wanted and we put it on a shelf. She had to keep track of each book she read and write a little blurb about it and once she got to 100 books, she got the doll.
Last summer I put up sheets in a laminated folder that have numbers 1-100 on them. Every time they read for a certain amount of time they get to pick a number. I have a number picked out for them already and if they guess it right they get a book buck (to spend on new books), if they don't they keep trying until they get the right number. I have seen people do this with real dollars or even $5-$10 because the odds so far have shown me it takes a while before they get the right number.
I will probably do that one again this year. But since we will be studying Geography I will probably do something with a global book theme as well. Dang. I am just realizing that maybe I need to do a whole blog post about this on Gingham Owl. :)
Anyway, those are some of the ways I make sure they keep reading even when it isn't their hightest priority. But I have backed off a few times with the night reading because I could tell they really weren't feeling it and I don't want them to associate reading with something they have to do rather than want to do.
In fact, as much as I love Pollyanna, when we were reading that out loud they were not feeling it. So I finally just decided to put it away and we started reading Princess Academy (the one we will finish tonight or tomorrow night.) and they have been so much more into it.
So that's another thing. Make sure they have things they are interested in!
And thus ends my novel of a reply.

Seth and Julie said...

My kids are Potter freaks. Well, Alyssa and Alex are anyway. Alyssa has read the series 5 times and watched the movies who knows how many times. Alex is reading them for the first time and is almost done with The Goblet of Fire. Last summer they wanted to watch all the movies in one day but my brain melted after the 4th one. I almost bought the British copies while I was in London. There were only a few books in the series at that time and I had the US versions at home so I didn't buy them but I wish I would have. I shouldn't admit that I went all the way to London and spent one whole day in the Barnes and Noble in Piccadilly Circus, but that's what I did. I also spent about three hours in the Doc Marten store. It was 4-5 stories tall and I wanted everything so I bought nothing and I still regret that too.

Cheryl said...

I've thought about that. Of buying them there. But that's a lot of weight to carry around!Plus I have all the books.
I could probably get lost in Barnes and Noble and the Doc Marten store too.