Start With a Book offers a world of opportunities

With summer vacation around the corner and children promising to be as curious and eager to explore as ever (both in and out of Read-Alouds!)  StartWithABook.org by Reading Rockets presents a fantastic way to pair books and activities for any size group.  Not only could these pre-packaged Read-Alouds be used by volunteers in TRC's programs, but they were designed specifically for parents to use with their children at home so you can use them with your kids and friends at home too.

The main feature of StartWithABook.org, which is aimed at children ages three to nine, is a library of themes from art to weather, all of which come with pre-planned reading and activities. The five steps to discovering the theme with a child (or children!) are listed:

Art and Artists

Choose books and book-related activities

For each theme, Start With a Book provides a list of books, both fiction and nonfiction, with links to where you can purchase them--though you could also  head over to the nearest public library to get it started. 

 

Bugs, Birds and Animals

Explore more hands-on activities 

Family Literacy Bags on every theme are available for download.  Every Bag includes three activities: a Creativity activity (a hands-on craft project), an Imagination activity (with writing, drawing or creative play) and a Get Real Activity that emphasizes how to draw real-world experiences and useful information from the books you've read.  A page of bookmarks suggesting even more titles makes it easy for kids who get passionate about a topic to continue exploring it at the library.

Builders and Building

Try some summer writing

Encourage kids with vivid imaginations who are taken with a particular story to write their own! StartWithABook.org has an archive of kids' writing prompts that you can use to get started--but make sure that imaginations are running wild!

Detectives and Explorers

Dig deeper and play

Reading Rockets has provided links to more resources that kids and parents can use together.  On its homepage, Start With a Book has a list of games and apps related to the themes in its library--so kids can see how the subjects they're reading about are related to the rest of the world. 

The focus of Start With a Book is to keep minds active over the summer, and to do it through books.  Be sure to use it as a resource in the coming months--and recommend it to parents who are struggling to keep children occupied during a long summer.

Post by The Reading Connection intern Anna McCormally.


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