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We’re celebrating 10 years of 6 by 6: Six Skills by Six Years, our award-winning early literacy program. Today's skill is "Talk Talk Talk!"

• Join the fun by helping us reenact the 6 skills on Facebook and Twitter
• If you're a childcare provider, don't miss our Teach the Teachers series

We’re celebrating 10 years of 6 by 6: Six Skills by Six Years, our award-winning early literacy program. Today's skill is "Take Time to Rhyme!"

• Join the fun by helping us reenact the 6 skills on Facebook and Twitter
• If you're a childcare provider, don't miss our Teach the Teachers series

We’re celebrating 10 years of 6 by 6: Six Skills by Six Years, our award-winning early literacy program. Today's skill is "Look for Letters Everywhere!"

• Join the fun by helping us reenact the 6 skills on Facebook and Twitter
• If you're a childcare provider, don't miss our Teach the Teachers series

Help Celebrate the 10th Birthday of 6 by 6!

That’s right, Johnson County Library’s award-winning early literacy program is turning 10!

We want YOU to participate with a short, simple, video! Grab your smart phone, or record from your tablet or laptop!

How? There are 2 easy options!

1) Happy Birthday Message
Script: (feel free to improvise)
“Hi! I’m (insert name here). I want to wish 6 by 6 a Happy Birthday!”
Then, upload it to your favorite social media site: (Facebook, twitter, YouTube) and use the hashtag #6by6

2) Act out one of the 6 by 6 Activities
Script: (again, please feel free to improvise)
“Hi! I’m (insert name here). To help celebrate the 10 birthday of 6 by 6, I encourage you to Have Fun with Books (or substitute the underlined with any of the other 6 by 6 skills numbered below)”
Then, pick one of the suggested actions to demonstrate/act out. For instance, if you choose the skill: Have Fun with Books, you could hold up your Library card and maybe say, “This isn’t just a Library Card. It’s a passport to unimaginable realms!”
OR
Flip through the pages of a wordless picture book and narrate it.
OR
Give a book as a gift to a friend.

Just be sure to take a video of whatever you do.

Then, upload it to your favorite social media site: (Facebook, twitter, YouTube) and use the hashtag #6by6      

1. Have Fun with Books
Suggestions:

• Get a library card
• Visit a library.
• Let a child help you select books
• Check-out books
• “Read” a picture book
• Take books wherever you go: doctor’s office, in the car, at the grocery store, in the park
• Give books as gifts

2. Look for Letters Everywhere
Suggestions:

• Look at the picture of the 6 by 6 peacock and find the letters
• Cut sandpaper letters to use for rubbings. Put printer paper on top of the letters and rub over it with the long side of a crayon
• Hold up a letter and point to an object that begins with that letter - “D” point to toy dinosaur
• Point out shapes that look like letters
• Make a letter collage
• Say a sentence with words that all begin with the same letter sound (alliteration) like: the baby bounced bravely by broadway boulevard by Boddington Bay
• Make “alphabet soup” by gluing letters on to paper
• Make letter shapes and letters out of clay, in shaving cream, in fingerpaint

3. Notice Print All Around You
Suggestions:

• Put together a puzzle that has pictures and letters or words
• Let a child help you make a shopping list
• Write, and announce what letter you’re creating
• Have children help read a recipe
• Identify print on t-shirts, boxes and signs
• Hand a book to your child upside down, and see if she turns it around

4. Take Time to Rhyme
Suggestions:

• Name as many words that rhyme with “goat” as you can.
• Sing a rhyming song
• Make silly words that sound alike: Michael Motorcycle, Emily Bemily
• Use these word endings to create rhymes: _ed (red, bed, fed) _at (bat, cat, mat) _ing (bring, sing, ring) _ight (sight, light, fight)

5. Talk, Talk, Talk
Suggestions:

• Talk about the pictures in a book
• Find a real-life item of of something depicted in a book
• Label items in your home or car: doors, chairs, windows, etc. (use sticky notes?)
• Have a child describe the illustrations in a book
• Pick a word and give it’s definition

6. Tell Stories About Everything
Suggestions:

• Put your day into a story!
• Sort items (buttons, blocks, etc.) by size, shape and color
• Ask a child to tell you about his or her day
• Have your child draw a picture. Then let them tell you what is happening in the picture.
• Count common things you see (like clouds)