iVillage PBS Kids Summer Reading Community Challenge: Week Two, A Mouse in Our House

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The following was written by editor Kara Fleck.

Our family is joining in with the iVillage PBS Kids Summer Reading Community Challenge.? This is our second week on the challenge and we?re having a great time reading together!

To go along with the challenge, we?re using (and loving) Life As Mom?s Summer Survival Guide and following? the weekly themes that Jessica suggests.? This week, there was a mouse in our house. (Okay, not really, but it sure made for a fun theme)

Here is what we?ve been up to this week:

In Our Book Basket

I loved the books we read together this week! Good Night Moon and Stuart Little are favorites from my own childhood, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie was a book that Jillian requested over and over as a toddler.? It was neat to be able to share these with the kids and to see them fall in love with them, too.

As I did last week, I made an effort to ask my pre-reading kids questions about the images in the books and about the characters. ?What do you think happens next?? was a question that led to some discussion about the books and I think really engaged them in what we were reading.

Beyond the Page

One of my favorite things is to incorporate some simple art projects and crafts to go along with what we?re reading.? We had a good time exploring color through crayons and water color paints, inspired by the Mouse Paint book.

My husband and my oldest daughter had a special mid-week father/daughter ?date? to the library. I loved that when he announced where they were going she was as excited as if he had announced they were going out for ice cream.? I also loved that they came home with a bag full of books and then they both immediately got down to the business of reading.? Fun!

I have been having some fun with food to go along with our themes, too.? We made these Strawberry Mice for a snack.? I served them with cheddar cheese wedges. Very cute and very tasty!

Let Older Children Read to Younger Children

We discovered that our library has a? collection of ?seek and find? books, which was a real treat for the little kids.? Jillian got to practice her reading out loud skills by reading the books to Max and Lucy (which the two of them loved ? positive attention from big sister is soaked up like a sponge around here).

All three of the kids got pretty silly together and it quickly has become a much anticipated morning tradition for Jillian to read to them.? You can bet we?ll be looking for more of these seek and find books on our next library trip.

Let Your Kids See YOU Reading

I think it is important, not only to make sure we read to our kids, but that our kids see us loving books and reading, too.

My hope is that we are setting an example for the kids that a love of learning and reading isn?t something that ends with childhood, but that can be a life-long joy.

Make Reading Together a Priority

This has been a pretty busy week for us.? I had a a few doctor?s appointments and we had some errands to run in preparation for the Father?s Day weekend ahead.? It has been a little hectic, to say the least.

But, we still made time for reading.

It was really nice to be able to connect with the kids by making sure we got one on one reading time with each of them and also to have time to read together as a family. I think those moments in this past week helped to anchor us and I?m thankful we kept it a priority.

How is your Summer reading going? Read any good books with your kids lately?

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