Reading Challenge for Children: 30 books in 30 days!

Inspired by the idea of reading 1000 books before kindergarten, and backed by their love for children's books, The Bubble Ink hosted a reading challenge for children aged 0-5 years "30 books in 30 days". A very simple way to encourage and inculcate the habit of reading to your child every day.

The interesting part was that each day of the challenge, there were reading prompts, and the idea was to read books in line with the prompt. Reading we do every single day, but the prompts is what made it very exciting :)

And as we complete the first 15 days of the challenge, I decided to blog about the books that I read with my little pudding :)

Mar 1, 2014 - Day 1 
Reading prompt: Hugs and Kisses

We read 2 stories today 'I love Papi' and 'I love Mami' which are adaptations based on Nickelodeon's teleplay 'Dora the explorer', which my 3 year old absolutely loves!

The stories are about all the wonderful things that Dora does together with her mum & dad. There are always lots of cuddles, hugs and kisses as we read them, and my lil one never forgets to say 'I love mummy & daddy' at the end of it! :)

 

Mar 2, 2014 - Day 2
Reading prompt: Dr. Seuss

We don't own any Dr.Seuss' books yet, but thankfully our weekly jaunt to the local library is on a Sunday. And my toddler chose 'Oh, the places you'll go!' to read.

I wasn't sure how much sense it was making even as I was reading it to her & her verdict at the end it was.. "mumma, this is just such a silly book". Well, so much for the madness of Dr.Suess and the madness that the world really is, no!? :)

I also printed out a related join the dots activity sheet for her, which I have to admit she was more happy doing! So maybe, I should get hold of a copy of 'Horton hears a who' now! :)



 

Mar 3, 2014 - Day 3 
Reading prompt: Jungle / Zoo

Excited that we could read some books so apt for the theme!

'Jazzy in the Jungle' by Lucy Cousins who is also the acclaimed creator of the character Maisy. We had borrowed this from the library last week, it's a fun hide-and-seek adventure with bright illustrations and lots of flaps to lift!

'Fun & Games at the zoo' by Kevin Price & Vicky Fieldhouse, a book that we bought on our trip to the zoo recently! Masie and Bertie are playing games with the animals, and there are prompts on each page when you can actually involve your lil one in the games. So lots of jumping, hopping, swinging & roaring while reading this one! :) Buying a book is always a pleasure, but when your purchase actually contributes to a good cause, it's like icing on the cake!! This was one of those purchases!

 


Mar 4, 2014 - Day 4 
Reading prompt:1.2.3..

Today, in line with the theme, we read 'Dad! I can't sleep' by Michael Foreman.

A little panda can't sleep even after counting sheep when his dad suggests that he count something else. And so it goes on...1.2.3... and to counting everything from cows to hippos to dinosaurs! It ends in an endearingly comical way with all the animals ending up in bed with the panda & asking dad to get them a drink! :)) One of our fav. bedtime stories!

Mar 5, 2014 - Day 5
Reading prompt: Wordless

We read 'The lion & the mouse' by Jerry Pinkney!

Bought this today using the challenge as an excuse ;) The age old aesop's fable told only in pictures! The illustrations were so life-like that it scared my lil one a bit, but nevertheless a good experience! We currently try to do story creating sessions using rory's story cubes, but now I know can do it using books as well! :) I'm definitely going to get some of the recommendations for this prompt, flotsam & round and round books!!

Mar 6, 2014 - Day 6
Reading prompt: World book day fest

What could one do to celebrate world book day - read lots of books, visit the library, go to the book store, donate a book so a child somewhere could get introduced to reading - and that's exactly everything we did today! :)

And the books we read:
'The tiger who came to tea' by Judith Kerr
'I don't want to go to hospital' by Tony Ross
'Tumku has a talent' by Jayashree Bhat (amar chitra katha)
'The frog princess' by Jan Ormend & Emma Damon

And here's a picture of the little pudding, all smiling at the library :)

Mar 7, 2014 - Day 7
Reading prompt: Barnyard

We read 'Picnic farm' by Christine Morton & Sarah Barringer.

And the second book we read was 'Busy Farm' from Lego Duplo. It has small lego blocks using which you can build animals. My lil one is probably a bit grown up for this now, but she still enjoys it nevertheless!

Mar 8, 2014 - Day 8
Reading prompt: Mommy & Me

We read 'My mummy is magic' by Dawn Richards & Jane Massey. A simple lyrical book about the magic that mums do everyday!

For tomorrow's prompt, we have another book by the same author :)

Mar 9, 2014 - Day 9 
Reading prompt: Daddy Dearest

We read 'Daddy is my hero' by Dawn Richards & Jane Massey! Daddy is every type of hero rolled into one.. We bought this book last year as a gift for father's day, and is an absolute family favourite! :)

Mar 10, 2014 - Day 10 
Reading prompt: Toy Story

Yeah! We read 3 books today, all in line with the theme!

'Ollie and the lost toy' by Lucy Richards. An endearing lift-the-flap story of how Ollie overcomes his fear of the dark in order to find his lost toy!
'Spot's favourite toy' by Eric Hill. Every toy that Spot plays with becomes his new favourite! :)
'Don't worry, Wanda' from stories for 3 year olds published by igloobooks. A simple story surrounding toys that teaches about sharing!

Mar 11, 2014 - Day 11 
Reading prompt: Now, I know my ABC

 Interesting theme, this is! Don't all books exist because of ABC..!? ;-)

We read Tigger's Giant Lift-The-Flap book! It introduces young children to letters, numbers, shapes, colours etc. Not my personal favourite, but with over 70 fun flaps to lift, my little one surely is not complaining :-)

Mar 12, 2014 - Day 12 
Reading prompt: Acts of sharing and kindness

We read 'Bubbles is selfish' from the Bubbles series, in which a little monkey learns that sharing is fun!
And we also read 'Stories to share' from parragon publishers. Not all stories in the book are about sharing but they all are definetely for sharing! :-) Our maid who has a grandson the same age as my lil one was buying a book for him, and she bought this book for my lil girl as well, very kind of her!!

Mar 13, 2014 - Day 13 
Reading prompt: Wonder wheels - Things that go

Wonder wheels, whoop whoop! Our wheels are very different, quirky & exciting! They are animals on wheels :-) We read a story from Disney's 'Jungle Junction'. Animals zipping around the jungle on their wheels, adorable characterisations such as Zooter (a pink pig scooter) & Ellyvan (an elephant van), stories filled with humour & excitement, you are bound to love jungle junction!
We also read 'Noddy and the naughty paint trick', a fun pop-up story about Noddy and his lil car!

Mar 14, 2014 -  Day 14 
Reading prompt: I am I (Celebrating one's individuality)


We read 'The not-so-perfect penguin' by Steve Smallman. All the penguins in the group are smart except Percy who is not so perfect! The story is about how Percy realises he doesn't have to be like the others, his friends loved him just as he was!

This is such an empowering theme, and I had only one book that fit in. So a lot of books recommended for this theme on my wishlist now! :-)

  
Mar 15, 2014 - Day 15 
Reading prompt: Lift the flap, Pull the tab, Play I spy

For today's theme, we got out the baby books, that were peeking from some corner of the book shelf! ;-)

We read 2 lift-the-flap books 'On the Go!' and 'Eyes, nose, toes peekaboo'. And we read another one which has sliding tabs called 'One little hippo'.

'On the Go' is a very special book as that's the first ever book we bought for our little girl, when she was just 2 months old! :-)

 That's us reading 'On the Go', almost exactly 3 years ago :))

It is a lovely challenge, and the experience so far has been brilliant! I have learnt more about children's books in the last 15 days than I have in the past 3 years! :-)

Thank you Bubble Ink for the wonderful opportunity!

Do keep watching this space to know about the books that we will read in the next 15 days, and will also share some wonderful recommendations that we picked from the challenge!

Love
Sirisha