Summer Reading Programs & At Home Storytime

We have been completely inundated with reading programs this summer! I know it's important to get kids reading, but it almost seems like overkill now!

Reading Programs we are participating in:
Library's program for kids
Library's program for adults
Governor's program
School's program
Local News Station's program
Church's program

See what I mean? Overkill. Luckily, we can mark the same reading time for almost all those charts. It's just getting ridiculous trying to keep track of it all.

With four kids it's been fun trying to keep everyone interested in all this reading. My oldest loves to read small chapter books during quiet time. But since she's the only reader in the house, we also get a lot of books on CD or tape to keep the other kids happy. We also do at home storytime. The key to a good storytime is to never ask the kids to pick the book. Getting them all to agree on one book is no easy task my friends. Instead, I pick 3-4 books and they all sit on the floor around my chair to listen. (Well, usually the baby crawls off, but we try and that's what counts, right?!)

I like to ask questions and get the kids involved in the story somehow. If it has a lot of repetition I make them repeat it with me. If the pictures are really important to the plot I ask them questions about what they see. When we're done I ask them to tell me what happened in the book so they learn to follow a storyline.

When we're done they each get to look at one of the books I read and then I have them color a picture, act out, or do some sort of activity that goes along with the book they have. It's a lot of fun and gives us something to do for at least an hour everyday!