0 home reading tracker

Last year I wasn't good at tracking my students' home reading minutes.

I mean, I still tracked them and all, I just didn't have a successful motivating system. 

I used stickers and that's about it. Boring huh? Ya... it was.

I feel like I "dropped the ball" last year, so I am determined to succeed this year.

Since I have a carnival/circus theme in my classroom,
I decided to make a "Reading is Sweet" bulletin board with some cute lollipops I found at Target.
This board is used to track the home reading minutes.

For every 100 minutes read at home, my students earn a pony bead to put on their necklace.

All of my students have a dog tag necklace with their names and "grade 2" stamped on them. If you want to stamp your students' names into dog tag necklaces, then it is important to get a soft aluminum. 

(I wouldn't recommend buying them from Oriental Trading.) I got mine on Etsy here.  

Click here to see what kind of metal stamp set I used (you may want to shop around for this).

To start out the school year, each necklace had a piece of candy.  My students got to trade in their candy when they read their first 100 minutes (at home) and earned their first bead. I will continue to put cheap/hard candy on their necklaces every so often to keep up the motivation. 

Even though my students have only earned one or two beads so far, they are so excited! 

They are talking about the patterns they want to make with their beads... and all I tell them is: 

Keep reading at home and you will get that pattern!

I require my students to read at least 20 minutes each school night for homework. I send home a reading chart each Monday and it is due each Friday (click here to view my Home Reading Chart). In one week, they should be able to get 100 minutes read, which would earn them one bead a week. 

So now tell me, how do you track home reading minutes?

What kind of rewards do you use?