more things to love...

There is more to love. Of course there is more. There is always more to love.

I love...

Reading.

To celebrate February's 'I Love to Read' month, I wanted to talk about this little hobby that has sadly been on the back burner during the past (childrearing) years. I realize how blessed we are to have children that are such avid readers & realize that the more I find moments to read it's something I love, and I pass that love of reading on to my children.

My favorite books to read are......drumroll please.  My children's books - not just picture books, of course those are fun!....I'm talking about their chapter books.  Yes, that is right, they are definitely below my official reading level and may not provide the intellectual stimulation within every paragraph, page and chapter. However, I love that I can sit down and read through a book within a few days. It was when I was teaching school - particularly 5th grade that I realized how incredible these "children's" books are - although often overlooked due to the fact that they are in the Juvenile section. These are great finds! The books I love most are the historical fiction (historical non-fiction is absolutely even better!), as they are based around real events, real people, real emotions - although they weave in some fictional characters or situations that probably happened, but it's not documented - or they weave a few true stories together to make one large story.  

And the bonus is that it helps me read books that I can recommend to Madeleine and Bryson...and soon enough to Jacob. My favorite book that I read this week is 'Letters from Rifka' about a young Jewish girl that escapes with her family from Russia and emigrates to America. They face many set-backs, however personally she has the most challenges but turns them into significant learning and growing experiences.

With talking about the love of reading, I wanted to say how much I have loved being involved with one of the best fundraisers at the kiddos school. This year, I decided to pick the Scholastic Book Fair as another pet project for my to-do list. And I have loved it! We just finished our 2nd Book Fair and we have the 3rd in June. Each time gets better, we learn more, and I get to know more of the students, the books they love and the teachers who are so appreciative of the books that we are able to give them through the credit we earn from the sales.

I also love how much the children enjoy being at the school with me for these extra hours. And there are a lot of extra hours. The set-up for the event takes a good 2-3 days...last fall we had 2 days this time we had 3 days. The great news is that we were able to finally hold the Book Fair in the school library....seriously, you have no idea the amount of persuasion this took with our administration! They are very protective about their library, which is ironic because no one uses it! We don't have a librarian due to budget cuts, and the students can't check out books from the library. Sad to say - the library is a beautiful space that isn't used as it could/should be!

The Book Fair is a chance to start turning that around, as the Administration is now open to getting the library up and running, and that has become another project that I and another gal on the PTA are working on. I suppose even though I don't find a lot of time to read, I want to be sure that reading is available to these children and that we have options of using a space that is meant for reading, discovering and learning.

Thankfully hours of hard work has paid off in a big way with each Book Fair.

And here are some pictures of my little loves in the Book Fair - and some of the other people we know at the school as well :)

On Tuesday we had a Family Literacy Event with Super Heroes reading to the children (along with the theme of Reading Gives Us Super Powers!).  This is our principal Ms. B reading to a group of students...Bryson is in the brown laying on the bean bag.

Next a Firefighter read to a group of students...