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Summer Reading Motivation Thanks to PBS Kids Summer Reading Challenge

June 16, 2012 By Leticia

One of the biggest challenges for parents can be balancing the laid back approach to summer and helping children keep skills current so they’re ready to return to school in the fall.  While the start of school may seem far away, it’s important to integrate learning in a fun way over the summer so kids don’t forget what was learned during the year.
In order to help motivate Captain Computer’s kindergarten class, we incorporated fun reading materials from the iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challengeinto the end of the year festivities. Literacy based printables, coloring sheets featuring favorite PBS characters, a colorful reading log, along with items like bookmarks, stickers, and paperback books were provided to each student to use.
Since this year’s summer reading and math packets came home from our school early, I was able to determine how we could integrate the iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challengematerials into the activities we were already planning to complete.  After all, when summer is supposed to be relaxed, we don’t need yet another thing on our plates!
I love that the materials integrate nicely into what the kids at our school are already supposed to be doing and so far they’ve received rave reviews from parents who emailed me saying:
  • This is wonderful. Thanks!!!!!
  • Thanks for sharing these materials.
  • Thank you SO much for these great materials!  [My son] has been wearing his 3D glasses and reading The Cat in the Hat book every morning.  So fun!
  • I’ll definitely take a look at the website.  Thanks for sharing!
  • Oh wow that’s terrific. [Our daughter] is kind of a “lazy” reader so maybe this’ll help her get up to snuff.
Please visit the iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challenge to sign up to participate, tips from Scholastic, and to access the free printables.
In order to maintain the privacy of the children and families in the class, no images were taken during the summer reading celebration and names have been removed from parent testimonials.  I am a PBS Kids Very Involved Parent program participant and received a class set of materials from the iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challenge to share with Captain Computer’s classmates.  All opinions are my own.

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Original post by Tech Savvy Mama
©2012

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Filed Under: Education Tagged With: free, iVillage PBS KIDS Summer Reading Community Challenge, printable activities, printable worksheets, summer learning, summer reading

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Hi! I'm Leticia, founder of Tech Savvy Mama! I'm an award-winning blogger, Washington, DC area mom of teens, middle school computer science teacher, and education consultant.  Read more...

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