Kindsight Is 20/20

Yesterday I stumbled on this thought-provoking quote on 

Karen Salmansohn's website; 

couldn't refuse making another mini-poster 

using a picture I took of our orange summer sky last night.

Too often we forget to express kindness to ourselves.

What was I learning? I like that reframe.

What will you do differently today, in kindsight?

And speaking of kindness, our friends from the FarFaria app have reached out to me and kindly offered to give one lucky reader a 3-month membership. 

You can get one free story {here}.

From their website:

A World of Stories

FarFaria is an iPad app that provides the perfect story time experience. 

With more than 750 amazing children’s stories—and five new ones added each week—

story time has never been easier. Created for children ages 2-9, FarFaria helps children 

develop a passion for reading and encourages families to spend quality time reading together. 

FarFaria’s engaging story-discovery experience encourages children 

to stumble into new stories they’ll love forever.

Features

• Unlimited reading from our library of more than 750 stories.
• Five new, engaging stories added every week.
• Interactive experience is fun for kids and easy for parents
• Every story can be read aloud with a Read-to-Me feature.
• Reading-level badge on every story cover.
• Offline access to read Favorite stories
• No advertising. No hidden fees.

As you know, my iPad mini and apps are oh-so-very-new to me, but I downloaded it, signed in, and chose a level 2 book called Can't Catch Caitlyn. I let the device read it to me and watched in awe as this software (are apps actually software?) highlighted the words in blue as they were being read to me.  

Read it again, this time without audio.

Encourage your child read it all by himself the third time.

I marveled at how far we've come and secretly hoped that something like this wouldn't ever replace the old-fashioned lap that we used to sit atop. Then I started to think about talking points within this short story, thinking of some questions whose answers aren't fixed, like this:

*Is it fair the Caitlyn has an earlier bedtime than her brother? 

*What would happen if you talked back to your parents? 

*What about if you ran from them?

*How do you predict they'll catch Caitlyn? 

*What do you think Grandma is knitting and for whom?

*Why is it important to brush our teeth before bed?

Celebrate the touchdown with a photo finish 

and make an album for your rocket reader.   

If you want to win a membership for this cool reading-enrichment app, just tell us in the comments what your favorite Back-to-School book is. The Gruener Generator will randomly pick the winner this Friday, July 25th, at 1 pm central. Check back that afternoon to see if it's you! 

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Today I want to express my gratitude at the halfway mark in the book study for all of the character educators who've caped up to share their reflections, thoughts, and ideas for extension. Two bloggers who weren't on the list have reviewed the book as well, so here are those links. Please tell them I sent you to help me thank them for their love and support.

Caring For The Kids 

Kindergarten: Holding Hands And Sticking Together 

And one of my character role models, Dr. Michele Borba, tweeted this sweet endorsement out to her followers yesterday:

  Our crusade continues tomorrow and takes us into August

with this star-studded blogging line-up:

I predict it'll be super!