With My Reading Buddy – May 2013

My second year as a Power Lunch mentor came to a close last week. The program has a new name “Read to a Child” (instead of Everybody WINS!)

Anyway, my buddy and I were able to finish all 4 Zac Power books before the year ended, so that was good!

Last week there was a year-end celebration at the school where all the students who participated got a certificate of completion (and the 4th graders got a “graduation” certificate, since that’s the highest grade that participates).

My buddy and I will have one more year left together before he “graduates”. He gave me a card that says “Thanks for reading me the Zac Power books.”  He’s too cute.

I ended up getting him the first 2 Goosebumps books. Not the read-your-own-adventure ones like I got him last year, but the regular books. I remembered I had a bag of books from when I was younger still at my parents house so one weekend I went over there and went through it and found a few books my buddy might like. They were all in good condition, so I thought it would be a great idea to pass them on – why should they sit in a bag where no one reads them, you know? He was happy to get the 2 books and I think he’ll actually read them over the summer!

So, school’s out! (for me at least)

With My Reading Buddy – April 2013

 

This month was better for meeting with my reading buddy – we only had one week off: his school vacation week.  Which happened to be the same week of the bombings at the Boston Marathon.  Thankfully, all of our schools were on vacation that week, so that was one less worry for people (think about it: schools would have had to go into lock-down – scaring both the children and their parents – or they would have had to evacuate which could have caused more panic, too).

Anyway, we’re almost done with Zac Power #3, probably have about 10 or so pages left to read.  A. seems to really enjoy the books, which is good, since I think these are much more appropriate than the scary books (I think you all know how I feel about those by now, yes?).  The program coordinator found book #4, so I think we’ll have enough time to finish that to wrap up the year together.

We only have 3 weeks left and then an end-of-year celebration, so I’ll only see him 4 more times until next fall when the program starts again.  I need to figure out what book to get him as the end-of-year gift… any suggestions?

With my Reading Buddy – March 2013

You may have noticed that this post was missing in February.  That’s because we barely met at all that month.  We met once, then he was out sick, then he was out for school vacation, then I had to cancel the following week.  Since I really didn’t have anything to talk about, I skipped the post.

Anywho, we really finally did finish that scary story book (now I can say Huzzah!).

We decided to read the first book in the Zac Power series: a 12-year-old spy (and his family are all spies too).  They’re cute books and A seemed to like them so we talked with the program director who was able to locate books 2 & 3 in the series so we started book 2 last week.  We only have about 7 or 8 sessions left in the school year so I’m thinking we could probably stretch these two books out for the rest of our time together.  I’m glad he was interested in something other than scary stories.  I just felt like the scary stories books  weren’t really age appropriate.

With My Reading Buddy #9

So today did not pan out for reading.  I alerted the program coordinator that I might be a few minutes late due to a meeting set up.  (As an admin, I sometimes have to help set up a meeting, making sure all the technology is good to go).  So we go to the room and there’s no projector. Oh, by the way, the meeting was in a different building from where I sit.  So I had to go back to my building to grab a projector, then go back to the meeting room and set up the projector, which had a minor difficulty but was sorted out.  Then I trucked on over to the school (a little more than a 10 minute walk).  As I walked in the door the program coordinator approached me and told me he wasn’t in school today.  She didn’t find out until the last minute because the teacher hadn’t turned in the attendance sheet.  So I walked on back to work.

I was so looking forward to saying that we finally finished the scary stories book. (I even had a draft of this post that opened up with: We FINALLY finished that scary stories book! Huzzah! - Imagine my disappointment when I had to delete it!)

A few weeks ago I went through the book bin at the school and picked out about a half dozen other books that we could read, and we talked about them last week and decided to keep them all in our folder.  So, now I’ll look forward to finishing the scary book next week and start something more entertaining.

Earlier in the month we had a session to meet with the teachers to learn a bit more about our student and if there were any specific we should focus on during our sessions.  Unfortunately, my student’s teacher was out that day, so I got to sit in with a different teacher.  I learned that they’re studying medieval history (You’re probably thinking What? In 3rd grade? I was thinking the same thing).  And I also learned that the 3rd and 4th graders have reading buddies in the kindergarten class…how cute is that?  I never knew that, so I talked to A about it the next time I saw him and he didn’t seem to be too excited about it, but I’m not sure why.

Also, January was reading mentor appreciation month.

Onward to February! —>

With My Reading Buddy #8

Normally I post this on the last day of the month, but since the last day of this month is also the last day of the year and I have a few other posts in the works, I figured I’d post this now, so I won’t have numerous posts on the same day.

Anyway, I’ve only met with A. twice in the month of December.  I was on vacation the first week and then last week was Christmas and the school is on vacation.

We’re still reading the collection of short horror stories that he brought in.  Some of them are strange.  Hopefully we’ll finish it soon and we can move onto something new!

I’m pretty sure this is the book we’re reading.   Apparently, there are a lot of these scary stories books out there, and there is no description of the individual stories within the book, so without having the book in front of me, I’m guessing this is the cover we have (plus, I remembered the name Charbonneau and the other installments of these books had different authors….)

Do you have any suggestions for books I can introduce to A. in the new year?  Whether scary/horror or otherwise? He ended up really enjoying Jumanji, even though it was a short book (and honestly, I thought the movie was more exciting); so maybe some type of adventure stories?

With My Reading Buddy #7

I’m posting my end-of-month stuff a day late, but hey, I’m posting it!

So I’ve met with A. a couple more times this year.  We’re reading a collection of, you guessed it, scary stories!  This is a book he had at home.  So at least he’s interested in reading his own books, right?  Sometimes, I wonder if it’s really appropriate to be reading, but then I remember we read a similar book that was part of the program’s book collection, so if they’re offering them, they must be approved!

The first book we started to read was a book about the “real life Jaws”.  Honestly, I did not think it was well written for a child (a lot of sailing speak: nautical miles, latitude, longitude, etc.) and it was barely holding my interest, nevermind A’s.  It was also told from the Shark’s point of view, which I thought was strange considering it was supposed to be a true story… So we decided to call it quits.  I found Jumanji in the book bin, so we read that first instead.  Now, I’ll admit, I had never read the book before then, but do enjoy the movie!  So, the book was decent, if short and not very detailed (I think they did a great job of expanding the story for the movie).  I told A. it was a movie and he asked if it was “On Demand”.  I told him sometimes it is and sometimes it’s on  a regular TV channel.  After we read the book, he asked me to write the name of the movie down so he could ask his mom to look for it.  The following week he said it turns out his family had the movie and he’d watched it a couple of times.  I’m so glad he was interested in the book enough to see out the movie!

Anyway, I think A. enjoys talking with someone and having someone listen to him (even if we chat about half of the time we should be reading!  He likes to interrupt with questions/comments/stories, that have a fairly tenuous connection to any part of the story we’re currently reading…)

With My Reading Buddy #2

I just realized as I set up the draft for this post that it is the last day of the month and I did the same for my first reading buddy post…completely unintentional.  But now that it has happened twice, well I guess I’ll have to keep doing it that way.

Since January 31, A and I have only read one book.  It took a few sessions, plus we did not meet last week due to school vacation.  We finished this book within the first few minutes of the reading session this week.

Magic Tree House #8: Midnight on the Moon, Mary Pope Osborne

As you can see, A wanted to stick with the Magic Tree House series.

I mentioned before that I’m on contract at my current job.  The contract ends at the end of March.  Is it wrong that I am sometimes more concerned about whether I’d be able to finish the reading program than the fact that I may not have a job?  But, some good news: I spoke with the program coordinator and she said that it would be great if I could continue with the program even after my contract is over.  I wasn’t sure if it was something that would be allowed since I would no longer be a part of the company, but she said it wouldn’t be a problem.

And other potential good news: I did find a job at the company (a full-time permanent employee position) and applied for it.  I have had a few interviews and I’m waiting for a response.  So fingers crossed for that!

That’s pretty much it as far as my reading buddy goes this month.  We don’t have a session next week because it is Super Tuesday (March 6) and the school is used as a voting station for the city.

With My Reading Buddy #1

I mentioned in my very first post that I participate in a volunteer program through my work.  Once a week, we visit a local elementary school and meet with a reading buddy.  It’s a one-on-one meeting where they get to eat their lunch and we read to them.

I wanted to talk about the books I’ve read with my buddy, whom I’ll call A.  He is in second grade and a real cute kid.  He likes to talk about video games and his siblings, but I think he enjoys the one-on-one time we have.  He has a few older siblings and I get the feeling that he probably doesn’t read too much at home.  January is/was National Mentor Month (or something like that) and the program coordinator had the students color thank you cards for us and write a little message inside.  A wrote “Thank you for letting me choose my own books.”  At least, that’s what I think he wrote, it was a little hard to read his writing.

I let A pick a book to read and then we go to our assigned room to sit down so I can read and he can eat.  Because we only have a half hour to read, the books we read usually carry over at least into the next week, though we have had a few last 3 weeks (and some are read in one meeting or less).

Since the beginning of the year, which, if I recall correctly was sometime in October, we have read about a half-dozen books together.  He seems to really enjoy the Magic Tree House series by Mary Pope Osborne.  Here are the books we’ve read (in the order we’ve read them).

      

     

        

I’m a stickler for order and whatnot, but A doesn’t seem to mind reading the Magic Tree House books out-of-order.  It bugged me slightly in the beginning, and I asked if he wanted to start with the first one, but he said no.  I think he said he had read it before.  (I hadn’t though ! hehe… and there is a theme that runs through them, they’re all connected, but oh well…it’s what A wants to do!)

This is the first year I’m participating in this program (because I wasn’t working at the company at the start of the previous school year).  This is also A’s first year in the program.  A few weeks ago he told me that he wanted to tell his mom he wanted to sign up for it again next year.  He also said “Wouldn’t it be funny if it was the next school year – like, the summer went by and it’s September again – and we got paired up with the same reading buddies?…They probably don’t do that.”  (in fact, they DO try to keep pairs together if both are participating the following year…however, I am a contractor at the company and my contract ends soon,  so unless my contract is extended or I get hired, I won’t be doing the program again.)

What are some books you liked as a child or read to your children?

Do you have any suggestions for books I can read with an 8-year-old boy?