I’ve got a show coming up and I need more beads. To get my creative juices flowing I wander over to Pinterest to look around. I saw this striped disk bead tutorial from Chestnut Ridge Designs and thought I’d share it with all of you. When I get back over to the torch in a little while I’ll make a few of these. They look great when you stack them too. The tutorial shows two different styles of making a striped bead. One uses Twists and the other dots. I like both. And if you color coordinate them, even better.
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Summer Reading Printables and Tips for Parents
Now that my daughter is a teenager, we don’t really do summer reading as a formal thing anymore. Her school used to take part in a program and she was usually one of the top readers in her grade, and she once won a birthday party at our local library’s summer reading program, so it’s safe to say there’s still reading happening over the summer, we’re just not tracking it like we used to.
For younger kids, using summer reading printables can be motivating and helps them keep track of the number of books or minutes they have read. Here are some cute ones to get you started:
- Everyday Reading has a super cute and big printable play mat summer reading adventure tracker, which has a list of activities and things to color. You can get it by sending your email address.
- Schooltime Snippets has ice cream themed summer reading printables, including bookmarks, challenges and trackers.
- Aspen Jay has a printable chart for tracking 100 books, while The Crafty Classroom has a printable showing 100 book spines kids can color in to track how many books they read (these are better for younger kids who can get to 100 much more easily since their books are shorter).
- Primary Playground has a bingo-style printable with reading challenges for littles like reading to a stuffed animal or under a table. Fun!
If summer reading stresses you or your kids out, a few things to remember:
- All reading counts. That means audiobooks, ebooks, physical books, you reading to them, manga, comic books, whatever. If there are words, it counts.
- Don’t pick books for your kids. As much as possible let their interests guide what they choose to read. Even if it’s all Dog Man books. (See above. All reading counts!)
- Read together. Even if you aren’t reading to your child or they aren’t reading to you, you can have a family reading time where everyone reads together.
- Take books everywhere. This is for kids and adults alike. There’s always waiting time you can fill with books, or you might want to read at the park. If you always have a book you and your kids will automatically find more time to read.