With screens of all sizes now at our fingertips, it’s a new habit for parents to hand over tablets and iPhones to appease busy, fidgety kids. In fact, CBS News reports that 90 percent of two-year-old children use these electronics. Imagine if parents replaced those screens with books instead – that statistic suddenly reads a lot more positively, doesn’t it?
It’s no surprise that teaching your child to read early has a plethora of benefits. Early introduction to literature helps develop children’s brains and oral language skills. Numerous studies show kids who are avid readers have better attention spans, stronger concentration and a greater vocabulary compared to those who do not read.
But tablets and iPhones have endless amounts of entertainment and content, where children can zip through books quicker than parents can supply them. Thanks to one innovative mom, there is a way around this snafoo.
Amy Kelly began My Bookworm Box when her kids were in kindergarten and first grade. She understands the pressure and stress parents feel to give children the books they need to garner all the benefits of reading – but you can only go through Goodnight Moon so many times before you go crazy.
My Bookworm Box delivers a box of reading material right to your doorstep. All ages and reading levels are accounted for – board books for toddlers, easy and emerging reads and chapter books for older kids. After a week of reading, parents can return the books and a whole new box is mailed. For older kids, chapter books can be kept for one month.
Not every parent can make daily trips to the library or scour through bookstores for hours, so Kelly created a way for reading to be accessible for all – even the busiest of families. Better yet, after book boxes are returned and in not good enough condition to mail to the next family, they retire to a child in need, thanks to Reading is Fundamental, the largest non-profit children’s literacy organization in the U.S.
Choosing a bedtime story doesn’t have to be stressful. In fact, by always having an assortment of books to choose from, it can end happily ever after. Learn more at www.mybookwormbox.com.
Tasty Tidbits
- The first school lunch was served in a Philadelphia school for a penny in 1894.
- To cut spending in 1981, U.S. Congress proposed a policy allowing ketchup to count as a vegetable in school meals.
- The first cartoon character to appear on a lunchbox was Mickey Mouse in 1935.
- The USDA reports there has been a decline in the consumption of milk in school lunches. Some experts suggest this is due to nondairy selections that are now being made more readily available.
- The official food pyramid was updated in 2005 to a nutrition plate, which is split into four sections for fruit, vegetables, grains and protein. A smaller circle sits beside it for dairy products.
- School lunches were called noon dinners in the early 1930s.
- When vending machines first began appearing in school cafeterias, many communities in the U.S. picketed in protest.
- As of 2019, 14 percent of school districts across the country provide vegan lunches in at least one school. In California, a bill was proposed to provided $3 million to school districts to implement plant-based options but did not pass.
- The No. 1 rated school lunch in the U.S. is Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. The menu consists of plates such as Brazilian feijoada, all-natural chicken with coconut milk, Tuscan white bean soup and more.
