Free Children's Bookplates

Helen Dardik of Orange You Lucky is offering some free kid's bookplates to show appreciation to her blog readers. Very cute!

Games for Teaching Reading Pt. 1

We found some great YouTube videos that will help you teach you kids to read while making your personalized children's books.

Courtesy of Ann Kennedy:

Earth Day Crafts

In recognition of Earth Day, April 22nd, and in the spirit of Readsake, we thought that we would post some crafts for parents to work on with their children. Regardless of how you feel about environmental issues, one thing that parents must like, especially in these tough economic times, is that eco-friendly practices can often be more inexpensive than alternatives - especially when it comes to reusing things that you already have around.

Here's some of the ones that we found for you:

Make a Handbag from a Hardback Book

Paper Candy Boxes


Turn Plastic Bags into Dog Leash


Turn Old Magazines to Coasters


Make a Children's Desk Organizer with Recycled Materials

Making Reading Fun =)

It's vital to make reading fun for kids. If reading becomes an arduous, difficult tasks children will grow to resent reading; and if we're not careful, that resentment may carry on through their lives slowing their progression. It's our job to make reading something enjoyable to them - something that they look forward to, not dread. In reality reading is fun, it's one of lives simplest pleasures and it's up to us to pass that on to our children.

Robin McClure, the host for About.com's Child Care portion, has some great ideas to help reveal the joys of reading to our children. One of her great ideas is to incorporate things familiar to them in the books you read. Often we do this with things such as cars (or vehicles) and animals, but then we run out of these things. Broaden your spectrum! As Ms. McClure suggests, how about something like the flowerbed (or garden) that is at your home or a place that you're travelling to or a friend/family lives. How about the seasons changing, holiday themes, people working in your neighborhood (mail person, construction worker, etc.)? Why not making it fun and learning experience - not only about reading, but about things in their lives, as well?

Another great suggestion that is so simple, but so relevant is getting your child's feedback on what they would like to read. Ask them how they enjoyed a book, what books they enjoy, and throughout the day make a list of things that draw their interest so you can take note for the next trip to the library.

Reading is the gift of a lifetime, but we need to make sure that we set the right framework to make that happen.

Great Ways to Read to Your Children

With all of the time constraints for families there's increasing pressure to skip or lessen the time we spend with our children. Don't let that happen! As we know, reading to your children is one of the most important activities to do wit your children daily. An article from the University of Idaho documents some creative ways that you can read to your children, if you aren't available at bedtime, as other innovative ways to encourage reading.

If you're away at bedtime, the article gives the ideas of taping yourself reading or reading a book over the phone (something very feasible if you print a couple of copies of books for free from Readsake). And, of course as they remind us, bedtime isn't the only time to read - bring a book with you as you run errands and take advantage of waiting times by reading together.

To encourage reading Peggy McClendon, Read to Me Co-Coordinator, Idaho State Library; and Harriet Shaklee, Family Development Specialist, University of Idaho Extension; remind us to read with our children throughout the day - things like cereal boxes, road signs and billboards. They also suggest doing book exchanges with other kids and making them exciting by wrapping up the books.

Hello World!

Welcome to the Readsake Blog!

Today marks the official launch of our beta site at readsake.com!

The main purpose of Readsake is to promote quality time between parents and their kids by offering free personalized children's books and coloring pages. Aside from creating and printing free children's books, parents can share their children's work with friends and family. User pages have links to all of the books and drawings posted, so parents just need to share the url of their page (www.readsake.com/~username) so friends and family can also print these treasures! Call it social networking for parents.

Visit us today, you have nothing to lose - it's free!