What a week it's been! The 8th annual Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge launched on Monday with a flurry of activity. Five days later, with over 7,000 schools registered and 5,545,000 minutes logged (as of 1pm EST), our team is astounded at the committment summer readers have made so early on to log minutes and participate along with other kids from around the world.
Since the big launch on Monday, a new feature, event, or set of resources has been released each day. It's A LOT to take in (especially if you're new to the program!), but we don't want you to miss a thing, so here's a breakdown of everything we've shared this week. Enjoy!
- First, the main event! On Monday morning, our beautiful new website launched. The enormous minute counter starting ticking upwards at lightening speed. We issued a press release and blogged about the launch here on On Our Minds.
- We also launched our Summer Reading Content Calendar on Facebook, which reveals a free summer reading resource every single day of the summer, with a giveaway every Friday.
- Also released, an infographic on summer reading. Check out Top 10 Tips for Getting Kids to Read This Summer for quick, practical tips to motivate your readers, like "aim for 11 books," "get outside," and "allow choice."
- Monday evening, we hosted a Virtual Book Swap with book gurus Lori Ess and Betsy Bird. It was such a hit! Lori and Betsy chatting with parents about the best spooky stories (Goosebumps was an overall fan favorite, no surprise), the best books to read aloud around a campfire or in a tent, and suggestions for nonfiction space books (in keeping with our Reading Under the Stars theme, of course).
Finally, there are several awesome pinnable, tweetable, very shareable summer reading-related resources we want you to be aware of. Check 'em out:
- A Parent's Guide to the Summer Reading Challenge. New to SRC? Here's everythng you need to know.
- Our Summer Reading Challenge Pinterest board, featuring weekly book roundups, author quotes, tips for parents, and more.
- Constellation art and video: each time kids particpating in the Summer Reading Challenge unlock a minute milestone, a new constellation is revealed on the website. The first constellation, Scorpio, was unlocked this week! Check out the artwork and the video, featuring astronaut Leland Melvin.
- Summer Reading illustrations: in keeping with our Reading Under the Stars theme, we'll be sharing this gorgeous artwork that decpicts children reading in different settings around the world. Here's the first one. Consider them your bedtime story inspiration.
And just because I can't resist an opportunity to embarass my colleagues, here's a slideshow from our Summer Reading Challenge celebration we had here at the office. It featured star cookies, moon pies, and giant astronauts for employees to pose with. And pose they did. Enjoy!
