"The Box Car Children" chapter book series, have had such a positive effect on our family. Each week I read one or two of the books to Aiden and Caileigh and they can easily sit for an hour or longer of story telling. There are four main characters, Henry, Jessie, Violet and Benny. Each week we have 2 of Aiden and Caileigh's friends over and they spend hours acting out the stories. Aiden is Henry, Caileigh is Jessie and their friends are Violet and Benny.

The kids also enjoy sending emails back and forth to their friends. I've copy and pasted one of their emails to show as I find it so cute.

They type them out independently as you can see from their phonetic spellings.

{written by Aiden and Caileigh}

to vilit and beny
see you soon. i hope you can mak it on thrsday.
frum henre and jesi

{Written by their friend}

Deer Henry And Jessie And Of corse Gradfathr I Hope so How Is Jessie Henry ? Form Violet And Benny

About a month ago, Aiden and Caileigh sat at the dinner table discussing how the box car children don't watch TV. They decided that they were going to give up TV. I have to admit that although I was so proud of my kids for making such a great decision, I was feeling a little worried because TV had become an important part of our routine so that I could get the little ones down for bed at the end of the day. I wanted to support them so I went along. The kids entirely gave up TV for two weeks and then through more discussion they decided that they would allow themselves TV twice a week. They have continued this self imposed rule for another two weeks and it is going fabulously!

Although the kids didn't spend a lot of time watching TV, the extra time has allowed the kids more time for reading. They are constantly practicing. I saw an idea online where the kids make a caterpillar and each time they read a book they can add a circle. They each have nearly 40 circles which starts at the top of the stairs and I'm guessing they need roughly 10 more to reach their rooms. When the caterpillars reach their room, they earn a package of gum! This has really motivated the kids and each day they are in competition to see how many books they can read. We visit the library each week for piles of books so that I can make sure that the kids are reading and not memorizing the material. Today after breakfast I managed to grab a clip of each of them.