Reflecting On The Friendship, Happy, & Fun That Reading With Others Around The World Brings To All Of Us

It's moments like this after big events, that you put all of your heart and so much time into, that really make you reflect on what it meant to everyone and what it brought that will stick around.  

On this day, after one of our most favorite weeks of each year, those are the feelings that I am having.  I have been going through the pictures, videos clips, reading wonderful blog posts from my dear friends that I spent the week with, and reflecting on how all of us at Van Meter spread our love for reading aloud, literacy, sharing, and friendship around the world.  

It is filled with moments that I will never forget....and ones that I know will stay with the children I work with everyday and those in all of the other schools and places that we connected with for World Read Aloud Day.  

                               

Throughout the week, the children and teachers at Van Meter made 32 connections on Skype and Google Hangout.  In all of these connections, we met new friends in 26 different libraries and classrooms around the United States and in one other country. 

We loved welcoming 15 authors, illustrators, Marjan from BiblioNasium, and Jenny from Blokify into our library.

To listen to stories, poetry, hear the voice behind beautiful illustrations, and share the excitement for global literacy, was inspiring and special to everyone. 

Everyone at Van Meter thanks you Pam Allyn, LitWorld, and all of our dear friends who connected with us throughout the week for World Read Aloud Day.  

I loved looking at and sharing all of the beautiful pictures on LitWorld's Facebook throughout the week. It is very moving to see how children all around the world are embracing World Read Aloud Day and sharing reading too. 

                           

In the Smore below, we have create an online journal of our last five days celebrating World Read Aloud Day at Van Meter and with all of our special friends. We hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

We cannot wait until next year.  

Until then, let's stay connected and continue to share our love for reading, books, and writing every day.

These are things that will stay with us forever and make a difference.