Update on 100 books a month challenge and on NaNoWriMo


A week and a bit has passed since we took on this challenge and we are up to 30 books so far. We are planning a trip to the library near our house this afternoon, and tomorrow we'll visit the city library too!
Here is our list so far:

The Luck of the Loch Ness Monster by A.W. Flaherty
The Gruffalo by Julia Donadlson
If you take a mouse to the movies by L. Numeroff
The Ravioli Kid by Michelle Freedman
Monsters by L. R. Penner
Atlantis the Lost City ? by A. Donkin
Two Days in May by h.P. Taylor
Bambi by Janet Schulman
Seven Wonders of the Ancient World by M. Hoffman
Library Mouse a friend’s tale by D. Kirk
Shark and Lobster’s Amazing Undersea Adventure
Baby Penguin at Home
Every day’s a holiday
Usborne First words: people
Chipmunk’s ABC
Olivia helps with Christmas
I’ll be home for Christmas
The Nutcracker by Susan Jeffers
Christmas Trolls by Jan Brett
Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett
The Hungry Coat by Demi
Justice League Adventures The Magnificent Seven
Leaping Lizards by Stuart J. Murphy
Monster Musical Chairs by Stuart J. Murphy
Bug Dance by Stuart J. Murphy
Behind the Curtain: Hansel and Gretel by Christian Thee
It’s a Baby Zebra! By Kelly Doudna
Zebras by Jill Anderson
Deer at the Brook by Jim Arnosky
Peter and the Secret of Rundoon by Dave Barry.

If you are interested in the challenge, please visit home-grown kids to find out more.


About NaNoWriMo, we hit a roadblock.
I do have to say that I am so impressed and proud with how much my children have written so far. They have never written this much before. From day one, they were focused and wrote every single morning, meeting their daily quotas. Then we took four days off, and ever since we just haven't been able to get back to our routine. The kids have run out of ideas they say, and my stress level is clouding my creativity. They both have asked if they could keep their stories, but not participate in the challenge any more, that they want to finish their books, but when they get more ideas, which might not be right away. We talked about quitting, and really I don't like to quit and they don't either, but at the same time I am just so happy they tried in the first place, that I see "quitting" more as a pause than a stop. There is still two weeks in the challenge, so we might pick it up again, but for now, we are stopping.
Adrienne wrote 1714 words, Andre 1581, and I had 11,132 at last count. One benefit from this challenge that I already noticed was with Andre. We have done written narration with history and I normally get one sentence out of him for a chapter read, but this week, he wrote an entire page after reading his chapter! It seems like writing is not a scary thing for him anymore!

Comments

  1. Wow! Your kids sure wrote a lot. I think it is a great idea to take a break if need be and get back to it once the juices are flowing again. But I know what you mean about quitting. We feel the same way here.

    Good luck!

    I told my husband about NaNoWrMo and he is participating as well. Thanks for the idea!

    Tricia

    ReplyDelete
  2. Interesting! We read alot too. I have a post I've been preparing and it's saved for me to post at the end of the month. I just started doing this for this month. We don't do very much writing. Austyn doesn't like to do it much. He is more into lego, science, listening to me read, and math. So far we have 55 on our list for the month and 5 more that we used as extra reference (this means we didn't get through them, but chose areas of interest). Great job on your quest and good luck with the contest! :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think its great that the kids wrote so much all on their own. Focus on the positives that came out of the experience. If they pick up their stories again, that's great. If not, there is always next year and chances are they'll be more readily prepared to go further. In the case of the kids not finishing the writing challenge perhaps you could at least help them to complete their stories with an appropriate ending that will suite their plot line so far.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment