Our daughter loves stories.

From the second she pops her head up in the morning until she falls asleep to them at night, yarns about everything from how monsters make nutty butter to the vacations her collection of puppets are on float through the air non-stop.

She is ALWAYS making something up, building imaginary cities, talking with her stuffies and pawing through books trying to figure out new ways to talk about all of the ideas running through her head.

Daily story time and regular visits to the library have become a big part of that routine for us and she has discovered a whole universe of ways to get ideas for her tales through the stories we read.

So, this Summer we have been all over the reading program through VIRL and started our warm-weather story fun by making bookmarks to keep track of where we’re at with all of the stories we love - and for the tiny person’s pals so they could get into the storytelling too.

We’ve been having such a great time reading and finding stories that lead us deeper into the land of imagination it totally surprises me. It’s stinking hard to inspire kids to learn sometimes. So, I jumped in whole hog after realizing that this one works for us.

I love trading reading lists since we’re always looking for new books and authors to test drive. So, I thought I’d share part of ours, and a quick and dirty tutorial on bookmarks that are a piece of cake, but seem to be the glue in terms of getting the kiddo excited to at least mark her stories, even if listening to them some days just isn’t going to happen:

The abbreviated CVK house Summer Preschool reading list:

- Old Mother West Wind by Thornton Burgess
- The Diary of a Church Mouse by Graham Oakley
- Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey
- On Meadowview Street by Henry Cole
- The Wind and the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
- Little Pea by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
- A Chair for My Mother by Vera B. Williams
- I Stink! by Kate McMullan
- Sunflower House by Eve Bunting
- That’s What Leprechauns Do by Eve Bunting
- Winnie at the Seaside by Korky Paul
- The Tale of Mrs. Tittlemouse by Beatrix Potter

Here’s what you need for the bookmarks:

- Craft paper (we used leftover scrapbook paper from another project)
- Rubber stamps
- Stamp pads
- Yarn
- A hole punch
- Scissors
- A ruler

Directions:

1. Cut your craft paper into 8-inch by 2-inch strips.

2. Punch holes in the top of each strip.

3. Cut the yarn into 4-inch lengths and string one length through each hole.

4. Take the stamps and let your kiddos go to town decorating the bookmarks and then put them to use on your Summer reading adventures.

Anybody else have any tips for inspiring some extra learning this Summer? I’d love to hear what everyone is trying out!