Reading Month Challenge

March is Reading Month at school. Each year we set a goal and if the students reach it, the director has to do "something." Last year, his phone, laptop and keys to his office were confiscated and he was required to sit in a rocking chair all day (about six hours) reading aloud. By 2:30, his voice was wrecked and his daughter (my student at the time) told me her daddy spent the rest of the day asleep on the sofa. The year before he ate a massive grasshopper. The teachers have come up with the Reading Month challenge in the past, but this year, the children are all putting forth their suggestions.

The first graders first said the director should kiss a girl, and the boys, (deciding that was too mean perhaps) voted to change that to kissing a frog. I tried to explain the concept to my three and four year olds ("If you read lots and lots of books at home, Mr. Director will have to do something for you"). Some initial suggestions were:

-give us cake

-kiss us
-pat our head
-take us to the seaside

-bring toys


Then I introduced the idea that we could ask him to do something funny, so they added,

-be a clown
-be a ballerina (I informed them that Mr. Director already said "no cross dressing, please.")
-jump up and down
-jump up and on a trampoline
-go camping (it is a little funny to imagine this guy camping)

Or we can ask him to do something difficult, I suggested, so they went on with,

-read a book (well, it is difficult for a three year old)
-build a house
-make a washing machine

and my favorite. . .

-I think you should give me a paper bag and a bridge and a mountain.