Read-to-Me Picture Book Challenge

I am a regular reader of the blog Together Time 4 Families written by Susan, a retired teacher of young children. Like Susan, teaching is a passion of mine - once a teacher, always a teacher! Susan creates wonderful posts about early literacy activities that foster a love of learning. Susan is a wonderful resource for parents and teachers alike. Please stop by her blog, Together Time 4 Families, and see how you can easily bring literacy into the lives of your children.

As often happens in the blogging world, I discovered another blog, Happy Birthday Author, through one of Susan's posts. Celebrating author's birthdays were always a big hit with the students when I taught elementary school. Eric, of Happy Birthday Author, highlights a different author on his or her birthday. He shares information about the author, which I love to learn about and share with Emmy, and his own personal insights and stories from using these books with his students as well as with his children. If your child loves a particular author or you are doing an author study on a particular author, be sure to check out Happy Birthday Author for some wonderful information and ideas.

From reading Eric's blog, I learned about a reading challenge that I am going to participate in. The Read-To-Me Picture Book Challenge, hosted by There's a Book, is designed for families who love picture books (I think that pretty much describes Emmy and me!!!). Three contributors make up this blog with the purpose of sharing a child's love of books as he or she grows.

Participants in this challenge can either read with a child or to themselves. I will be reading with my little bookworm, of course. There are five levels of challenges when reading with a child:

Reading with a Child:

"Planting" - Read 12 picture books with a child during the year.

"Watering" - Read 36 picture books with a child during the year.

"Feeding" - Read 72 picture books with a child during the year.

"Growing" - Read 120 picture books with a child during the year.

"Harvesting" - Read 200 picture books with a child during the year.

As you know, Emmy and I read LOTS of picture books so I am confident that reading at the Harvesting Level will be perfect for us. Writing about that many books will be more difficult, so please don't expect me to share all 200 of them, but Emmy and I will be sure to continue to share the books that mean the most to us!

If you would like to learn about this challenge, you can read more and join in the fun at There's A Book!