#KidsNeedMentors

Have you heard about #KidsNeedMentors? It’s a grassroots program started by a group of passionate people (teachers and a children’s book author/illustrator) who want to move the needle on literacy through real connections between children’s book creators and students.

I’d heard about the inaugural program last year and was bummed that I missed the window to apply. However, this year I was Janie on the Spot with my app and in late August, I received my pairing!

Ms. Stewart and I began to correspond (excitedly! with lots of !!!) and are developing a plan for connecting using the underpinnings of her literacy goals for the year.

We’ve started with a google sheet organized by month and our first interaction will be a video chat with her students to share Top 5’s: 5 things about ourselves and 5 books we want to read this year. A little package is headed their way (shhhh!) and I’m looking forward to all the ways we connect about books, reading, writing, and exploring this big, wide world through literacy.

Here are the organizers of #KidsNeedMentors with their Twitter handles. Feel free to follow them!
Jarrett Lerner, author-illustrator (@JarrettLerner)
Kristen Picone, 5th Grade Educator (@Kpteach5)
Kristen Crouch, 5th Grade Educator (@KCreadsALOT)

To learn more about the program, visit Jarrett Lerner’s blog HERE and HERE. Follow #KidsNeedMentors on Twitter and Instagram to see all the ways that creators and students are connecting. It’s truly inspiring.