Reading and Whining

The big news of the day around here is that Rachel and I have started her "Summer of Learning to Read" today.  We bought the three Bob Collections of books to learn how to read and I told her we would get through them all by the end of the summer.  There are 50 very short and simple books that introduce sounds and sight words.  At the rate she's going, she'll have them finished by June, but I don't want to get too far ahead of ourselves.  I made her a chart and for each book I want her to be able to read it 4 times without any mistakes.  She gets a sticker each time she reads it through without a mistake and then after 4 times, she's done with that book.  She read books 1 and 2 without any mistakes already today.  They get harder, but it's nice to start off with excitement!
The problem, though, is that if I don't provide something for Rachel to do every single second of the day she whines that she's bored or hungry or doesn't know what to do.  Reading and math together take about 20 minutes for her and then we have the entire day ahead of us.  I'm guessing this is a first child problem because she's always been entertained?  Ford and Ruby have no problem entertaining themselves for short amounts of time.  Ford will draw or play trains or build with block or Legos.  Ruby will color or do  puzzles or make necklaces.  They never ask me what they can do next, they just find something and do it.  So, my other project with Rachel this summer is going to be to force her to entertain herself for small amounts of time.  Now that Ruby can handle coloring better, I'm going to leave out paper and colored pencils where anybody can get to it at any time (if the walls get colored, we'll have to put it up, but luckily...knock on wood...that hasn't happened).  We're not quite ready to leave the Play-Doh out but it's pretty easily accessible if someone wants to play.  I just need her to not rely on me to tell her every single thing she needs to do.  She has a horrible habit of when she needs to pick something, like a book, turning to me and saying, "Which one do you think I would like?"  I keep telling her that when she has the chance to make her own choice, she needs to do it and not wait for me to decide for her.  I guess after the independent streak from 2-4, kids get tired of trying to do everything the way they want to do it and now expect someone to tell them what to do!