2013 Super Summer Challenge

This was our third year for Tate to have a Super Summer Challenge. As I say every year, I can take no credit for the idea. Some lady created the whole thing, and I was fortunate enough to have friends with older kids who knew about it and let me copy them.  :)

Tate's self-portraint of future career from art class. Hockey Player. :)

Push-ups

The art of writing a real letter.

I will say this year was one of the best yet because he has become a great reader. Tate was able to read the poster and figure out which activities would get him the points he was working toward. I think that helped him take a lot more ownership in it as well. Plus I didn't have to read the entire list to him every single day. :)  And I like that it's not an all or nothing kind of deal. I try to put a lot of options up there, but this year I think he still completed about 90% of them.

church sports camp

vbs/summer spectacular

remember to bring bible

2 memory verses

tie shoes

jump rope 10 times

5 push-ups

catch pop fly

5 bites new food

swim lap of 3 strokes

tennis ball rally 5 times

back roll
dribble ball 50 times

math flashcards

library reading program

read charlie & the chocolate factory

write in summer journal

worksheets

100-piece puzzle

spellingcity.com

art class

book on cd

lemonade stand

finish weekly chores

random act of kindness

help with recipe

write and mail letter

read to will

no complaining at dinner

park & rec challenge

help at watermere service

One of the highlights for me this year was reading Charlie and the Chocolate Factory with Tate. This was the first full chapter book we have read together. He loved it. My favorite moment was one night while reading, Tate asked me to stop for a second and ran out to excitedly tell Wade, "Daddy guess what! Charlie Bucket got the Golden Ticket!" So cute.

But we also have a major parenting fail. The bike. This yet again did not get fully crossed off the list. We are going on several years of working on it. He is actually not that motivated to ride it and is perfectly happy with his scooter. Plus we live in the middle of a somewhat busy street. Plus we just haven't taken him out and really dedicated the time to getting it to stick. Hopefully we can figure this out before he gets his driver's license.

Art Class with Annie.

Tennis Camp. And after several attempts, we did rally the tennis ball 5 times. :)

A 100-piece puzzle was a piece of cake. Next summer...500!

Tate did a great job setting up and running a lemonade stand at the entrance of our subdivision. A great lesson on preparation, patience, hygiene, customer service, hard work, and clean up.

After an hour, he had raised $33 for the kids at the Well-Bring Orphanage in Haiti.

And after much wailing and gnashing of teeth (from both of us), he TIED HIS SHOES!

Who doesn't love to learn how to crack an egg?

He did several random acts of kindness, but one fun one was going to a local laundromat and "secretly" leaving new detergent with a "For You...Yes You!" sticker placed at washing machines.

What I think is so genius about this idea (again, not my idea) is that it gives some structure to the unstructured summer, keeps some school skills going, gives positive reinforcement for trying some new things/learning new habits, and helps deflect the whole instant gratification world we live in.

This year we went with 200 points as the goal. And I will say it took the entire summer to get there. I wondered if he would really finish. But it was up to him to do it, and he finally did. :)

I try to make the rewards not necessarily huge as they are usually things we might be doing anyway during the summer (don't tell Tate that), but still something fun and different.

One night we set up the tent in the living room and had a "movie campout." Sidenote is this may have scarred him for life watching Where The Red Fern Grows. Kind of forgot about the rabies, foaming, mountain lion. 

Another fun reward was a day at the Perot Museum in Dallas. We were there almost six hours and probably could've stayed longer. He would've been happy doing this running race the entire time.


He also got a new Lego set as a prize and we played miniature golf on the 4th of July. But the biggie for 200 points was a day at Hurricane Harbor. He had never been there before and loved it. (Minus the assault/robbery we saw on our way out...yikes!)

Proud of this guy for working hard all summer. This wasn't always the top of his list of preferred things to do, but he stuck with it and worked hard. It paid off for some really fun summer memories!

SSC from 2011 (4 years old) and SSC from 2012 (5 years old)