The Bug Squad

I will spend some time this weekend catching up....on sleep, on laundry, on sleep, and on blogging! I have so much more to tell you about my trip! Last weekend, the Pearson Foundation asked the State Teachers of the Year to come to Washington DC early to help them with a project.  Here, from their website...

Jumpstart's
Read for the Record Campaign

Since our first national reading event in 2006, the Pearson Foundation has been a proud sponsor and founding partner of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record. This annual celebration of reading and learning brings young people and adults together to set a new world record for the most children reading the same book on the same day. In addition to helping young people everywhere have an equal chance to begin school with strong literacy skills they need to succeed, Read for the Record also draws attention to Jumpstart’s essential work in preschool classrooms year round.

This was a pretty easy task for me and for my friend Alvin Davis (Daddy Davis), the State Teacher of the Year from Florida and a National finalist.  Alvin has a two year old daughter who stole the hearts of  all who met her last week.  What surprised me most that day was reading to a very captive audience of one Chad Miller, State Teacher of the Year from Hawaii.  As it happens, Chad had NEVER read a children's book until the Pearson event!! He was very interested in hearing a highly trained professional (Me!) read the book before he recorded it.  Chad hosted the Dalai Lama at his high school this spring but was nervous about reading a book about a play date! I was more than happy to help.

It was great to catch up with my teacher friends over a children's book.  The Pearson Foundation is hoping to set a record with their Jumpstart's Read for the Record event this October.  How cool is that?! Meet Adam from Connecticut, Tim from Ohio, April from Louisiana, and Kristin from Oklahoma, great teachers all!