Reading has always been my go-to coping strategy. Some prefer TV, some prefer the solace of a dark movie theatre, and some prefer to write their troubles away. But I have always found my escape within the pages of a good book. I get lost in the characters and leave my own troubles behind.
Part of that is due to my early love of reading. My mother loved trips to the library when we were young. We had a beautiful library in my hometown, and the children’s department was incredible. I remember attending story hour, puppet shows, and even movies on a rainy day. I remember walking through the children’s stacks, searching through hundreds of titles in search of just the right book. I remember the feeling of independence as my mom stood back and just let me be. And I recall the feel of the slightly worn covers as I clutched them close to my chest, breathing in the scent of reading. I loved those trips to the library.
For my family, those library trips occurred year round. Perhaps more often during school vacations and summer break, but we always made time for reading.
With summer vacation on the horizon, it’s a good idea to think about summer reading. Kids are busier today than they used to be. Between camps, sports, and social engagements, reading can sometimes be forgotten. Enter the summer slide. Did you know that your kids might actually lose some of that knowledge that they worked so hard to learn throughout the school year during summer vacation? It can happen. But it doesn’t have to. There are so many ways to make reading fun!
My friend Soleil Moon Frye is working with Target to spread the word about preventing the summer slide and putting the fun back into reading.
I chatted with Soleil to hear some of her thoughts about getting creative with reading this summer. This is what she had to say:
Doesn’t she just make you want to close that computer screen and head to your nearest library? (But don’t leave me just yet, or you will miss the giveaway!)
Tips for Preventing the Summer Slide:
Make it fun: When you create a fun art or cooking project to accompany a book, reading the book becomes that much more exciting. Kids will anticipate how they will create their projects or what their feast will look like. Reading doesn’t have to be just about reading…it can provide the basis for entire day of fun!
Take field trips: Even with very young toddlers, you can take trips to act out the books. A trip to the Aquarium is made that much more fun when you’ve just read Curious George Visits the Aquarium and can reference it along the way.
Take it outside: Kids love to be outside in the summer and we love to have them outside. Create a little outdoor reading nook for some outdoor downtime, or just spread a blanket on the grass and read side by side. Fresh air and a good book is a powerful combination!
And now for some exciting news for all of you…
Target wants me to give you a couple of prizes: One lucky reader will win a $50 gift card to Target, and another lucky reader will win 10 books!
And I will make this very, very easy on you. This is all you have to do to enter:
One Entry: Leave a comment here to tell me what steps you will take to avoid the summer slide.
Second Entry: Leave a second comment here to tell me about your favorite childhood book.
What are you waiting for?
This contest will close on June 18, 2012. Winners will be chosen by a random number generator and notified by email.
Disclosure: Target provided me with these giveaway packages to share with my readers at no cost.This sweepstakes is only open to U.S. residents 18 years or older. Please note that we cannot ship product to a P.O. Box.
i have 3 kids ages 2,3,6….we plan on doing lots of fun activities including trips to zoos, nature enters, local wildlife refuge, parks, the library for summer reading program, a bit of travelling and just some fun adventure to make learning and playing go hand in hand….
my favorite book from childhood- hmmmmmmmmmmm……always loved Beverly Clearly books!
My girls love the fact that every night after they go to sleep I pick out a book and put it on “display” in our living room. They wake up so excited to see what the surprise book of the day is. Then throughout the morning I make up questions about what they can see from the cover – “what do you think it will be about”, “do you think the tiger on the cover is friendly or scary”, etc. Then we read it together after we have eaten lunch. Such a simple thing but it makes reading seem so much more special. We of course read other books too, but we love this little tradition that keeps book reading in the forefront especially on busy summer days.
My favorite childhood book is anything by Richard Scarry and also the “Monster at the End of this Book” with Grover!
i will continue to read books to my daughter EVERY day.
my favorite book as a kid was the snowy day
We are very busy playing in the summer so I’m usually happy if we can get our bedtime book in. One pick for each child so that makes 3 books a day.
My favorite book as a child was Mandy. I was also obsessed with sweet pickles books when I was younger. My poor mom had to read them over and over and over….
We do a weekly library trip since buying books can get expensive.
We’ve also been attending story time to show little man other people like books too and that reading is social and fun!
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My favorite book as a middle schooler was Number The Stars. The spooky Old Tree was a family favorite too!
My little ones aren’t in school yet, so there’s no real “summer slide” although with all the outside time we do this time of year it can get easy to forget about reading. However, books are incredibly important to me, and I am always reading one. (When I was kid, my outside time in the summer usually consisted of me sitting in a lawn chair with a book.) So this summer, I am ensuring that books come with us on our vacations, and that we keep up with our 2 books before nap and 2 books before bedtime with my 2 year old
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When I was growing up, I was obsessed with the Babysitters club books. I know they aren’t the most well-written books but I adored them. I collected them, buying the newest one as soon as it hit our bookstore. I truly believe that reading those books and the adventures they had with young children is part of the reason I became a preschool teacher.
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Love this, you! As a former teacher, I think about this, too! We have daily time set aside for the “Bridging Grades” workbook, reading, writing, and math sets. My kids? Love this time. And secretly? I do, too.
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My favorite childhood books were the Laura Ingalls Wilder series – I can’t wait to read them with my won kids! #swoon
Galit Breen recently posted..Stretch
We do a lot of reading, trips to the library, and some homeschooling activities.
“Charlotte’s Web” was my favorite book as a child.
we will be spending A LOT of time outdoors this summer!!
Green eggs and Ham
There’s no screen time here until each child has put in at least 20 minutes of reading. Luckily, I don’t have to fight too hard. They both enjoy it, for the most part. For my youngest, he looks forward to that time with me too. Love this giveaway!
Congrats, Adrienne! You won the $50 gift card! Please email me your mailing address so that Target can get your package in the mail!
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Favorite children’s book? SO hard! If I have to pick just one, I’d pick Rikki Tikki Tavi by Rudyard Kipling. My dad used to go out of town a lot when I was a little girl. This was my favorite bedtime story. He read the whole book on a recorder so I could play it along and he could still “read” it to me when he was gone. It’s funny. The tape recorded was HUGE! Haha.
Need your address ASAP! Or they will make me pick another winner
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For the longest time, our just-two-year old wouldn’t sit down to hear a book – busy busy all the time. So we started having our five-year old “read” picture books to her. The pair sit in a chair, and our oldest points out and identifies images while our daughter repeats what he says. Over time she learned a great deal about object identification and the duo had a great time in the process. She now loves sitting and hearing stories that we read, making story time fun rather than a battle. This is a post-bathtime activity every night.
Congrats, Jess! You won the 10 pack of books! Please email me your mailing address so Target can get them out to you
Practical Parenting recently posted..Project Happy: Week 24
There are so many favorites it’s hard to choose! Some of my favorite childhood books are Are You My Mother?, Mistletoe, and The Giving Tree.
Great post!! We plan on keeping up on our reading all summer. Our local library has been fantastic about going into the schools during the last week and getting kids excited about the Summer Reading program. I am also having my older daughter keep up on her writing by keeping a Summer journal. These came home with her from kindergarten and the kids are encouraged to bring them back in September to their 1st grade teacher.
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My favorite all-time children’s book was (and still is) The Wonderful Tree by Ulf Lofgren. It is now out of print but I hunted it down a few years ago from a rare bookseller so I could share it with my own kids.
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