Let's Get It Started in Here

Hello! Just starting out and I think this is going to be fun! Hopefully this blogging thing will be easy to figure out and useful to keep my student's families in the loop of what is going on in our classroom this year. So I'm starting out today with a thought about reading logs. How can I ditch them this year? I love the idea of students reading a lot or even a little at home. I love knowing what they're reading, be it novel, comic book, science book, magazine, or website... but I hate the thought of them having to record it all like a chore. Reading is suppose to be fun and if parents and students are nagging one another about recording minutes and signing off, well it sort of becomes not fun. If anyone ever told me I had to read a certain required book like say, The Perfect Putt (which my husband is reading now), and record the minutes I read it, seven days a week, and then also write some commentary about what I liked or disliked, quite frankly I would ask,"WHY?" No purpose would be served except to turn me off on reading. I'm already turned off by golf :-) Last June I gave my class a survey about their year. I asked all kinds of questions and one was what they liked least about our class. It was clear to me that the most popular answer was keeping a reading log.  Anyhow, teachers get to know who reads and who doesn't pretty quickly. So it's my mission this summer to find an alternative to the dreaded reading log.