Keeping Up with Reading/Writing Over the Holidays For Older Kids

My oldest Minion (aka offspring) is in elementary school and what could be termed a reluctant reader/writer. He'll do it, but begrudgingly. Heck, I know more than a few adults like that, but we gotta do, what we gotta do. Sure it's easy enough to get them to write a letter to Santa, but what after that?

We've made a lot of progress this year and don't want to loose that motivation over the holiday break.

1. Our creepy plastic holiday goblin Elf on the Shelf helped.

Sure, I wasn't keen on the Elf on the Shelf, but his teacher had one last year and he loved it, so what are out going to do? Get on the bandwagon kicking and screaming I guess. If I have an elf, I'm going to make it useful. The elf left little blank mini-books with  instructions for oldest Minion  to write holiday stories for his brothers. Bonus, he had to read it out loud to his brothers.

2. Writing a holiday journal.

My oldest Minion had to write a holiday journal every second day over the holidays. If you want a keepsake, you can keep one, too.

3. Write mini-stories around Christmas ornaments.

Assumption = you celebrate Christmas. If you do and put up a Christmas tree, then have the kid(s) pick a Christmas ornament off the tree and write a little mini-story about it. If you don't celebrate Christmas, then you can pick any culturally significant or interesting object to write about.

4. Books under the tree!

Giving books under the tree is a great way to get them read afterwards. It might not be a hit on Christmas morning, depending on the kid, but it can be. We have a 30 minutes reading time per day that we try to stick to, so that helps. It's all Star Wars and superheroes here.

5. Book advent calendar.

Wrap 25 books (thank you Pintrest) and put them under the tree. Unwrap one and open every night. They can be your own books, or books from the second hand store. Use newspaper for wrapping to make it sustainable. The kids can even decorate the wrapped books with numbers and holiday themed stuff.