• Tuesday-What'sUP March 20 - 07:24 am

The Lake Linden-Hubbell Elementary school is celebrating Reading Month in March and all the students are participating in the Iditarod Reading Challenge. They're focusing on the Iditarod as a theme and have challenged every student to read for a minimum of 20 minutes, 5 times a week at home. When they've read for 20 minutes, they fill out a Husky shaped slip of paper, with their name, date, minutes read, the book they read and then a parent signs it to verify that they actually completed the reading. The minutes they all read will add up and take them from Anchorage to Nome Alaska, on a wall size map of the course the mushers follow. In addition, each class has "adopted" an Iditirod musher, and they've followed his or her progress throughout the race.

As part of the event, fifth grade teacher, Chris Rebman made a promise to the kids that if they read 51,000 minutes by yesterday, March 18th, he would spend the night sleeping in the snowbank by the school. They tallied the minutes and came up with 51,880, so that's just what Mr. Rebman did last night. I spoke to him around 9:30 p.m. and he was well prepared with a sleeping bag rated for -30° and Gore-Tex to keep him dry, plus layers below him, for warmth and dryness, too. Not to mention a down jacket and other warm winter garb.

The kids were all quite excited about the event and many folks stopped by to wish him well. TV6 news was even on hand to interview him and several of his students, including my grandson.

There could be a repeat performance of last night, but with two additional school personnel joining Mr. Rebman in the snowbank, if the kids read 91,000 minutes by the end of the month. What a great way to promote reading and get the kids excited about doing it, too. Thanks Mr. Rebman and the Reading Committee!

did he put heated rocks in his sleeping bag like my mom did when we were kids out camping.;O)

Now there's a teacher with dedication and kids can look up to!

My first thought...A visit with the homeless :-)

Kudos to Mr. Rebman!

Great idea!!!
Lets just hope nobody gets lost like the poor Husky-mix that got separated from her team during the race.

I have mixed emotions about this....what a shame these extemes have to be taken to get students to read.:< My generation didn't need to be bribed to get us to read. But hooray for a dedicated teacher.

I'm lucky in that ALL of my grandchildren love to read. Only one of my sons didn't much care for books, unless it was Stephen King. I don't feel it's so much as a bribe as it is encouragement to read. But hooray for this teacher who could just possibly instill a love for reading for these kids.

Let's hope you're right, Deb.

Deb is right, Shirley, this wasn't a "bribe", it was a fun way to encourage them to read. This teacher is very hands on and an outdoorsman, so it wasn't extreme for him and he loved doing it.

LLHS Elementary has Reading Month EVERY March and they always have fun activities to promote it with a different theme each year. The past two years, the entire Elementary School read the same book with a fun quiz during announcements each morning, asking about what they had all read the night before. They had a calendar, outlining what chapters to read each night, plus each class had a "mascot" having to do with the story, that each child had the opportunity to take home for a night or the weekend and then they have to write about the adventures they had at home with their "Hampster", "Rabbit" or this year, their "Husky" dog...all stuffed of course. :-) So it not only promotes reading, but writing, too. Nothing wrong with that.

Your generation didn't have video games, computers and 24 hour kids channels, competing for their leisure time, so more kids developed life-long reading habits at an early age. By doing something like this, it makes it fun for the kids, more appealing and hopefully it shows them how much fun reading can be.

You're right, Mary, reading was our adventure...we got 'lost' in books. And even though our children had TV, they loved reading...matter of fact we called our daughter, a 'bookworm'.:) I hope the parents recognize how dedicated this teacher is, and follow through on his idea.

Extreme conditions (video games, computers and don't forget cell phones/texting) require extreme action, and sleeping outside in the UP in March is definitely extreme. But hey...at least there is no bugs :-)

Our daughter, Michelle, took reading as a blessing. She was born with lazy eye leaving her left eye near total blindness. After 3 eye muscle surgeries, wearing eyepatches, wearing glasses before any of her classmates in pre-school, her vision became 20/20 and she can speed read up to 430 words per minute.

Congratulations to the Lake Linden-Hubbell Elementary School students, to all their supportive parents, to Mr. Rebman and the other teachers, and to the Reading Committee, on their fantastic and enthusiastic participation in Reading Month!!

I'm pulling for you to make it to 91,000 minutes by the end of the month, kids!!! :-)

I didn't know that about Michelle, Janie. Good for her...and I'm sure she had wonderful parents to help her along.

Yep, my dad was born with lazy eye, his left eye also, except it never was detected and he lost his vision in that eye, It skips every other generation we were told. Michelle was 2 1/2 on her way for the first eye surgery, once she was past the O.R. doors Bob & I just sat down to wait, those double doors opened, it was Michelle, she jumped off the gurney and ran back to us. One scared little kid!