乐播传媒

1st Place Winner

Post 1:

听听 听I was so excited to meet Leta two weeks ago at the Boulder Public Library for reading buddies. She did not hesitate in finding me right away and introducing herself. Leta is so bright and outgoing and excited about life, I genuinely look forward to the time that I spend with her. She likes to do everything and loves to tell me all about her life and family. She has a cute kitty named puddle that I have heard all about.听

听听 听Leta is a second grader who just turned 7 in July and both of her older brothers are also involved in the program. I found out on the first day of buddies that Leta is also fluent in Italian. I think the fact that she knows two languages makes her an advanced reader for her age. Leta and I have spent a lot of time coloring and reading books. She's excited about Nancy Drew and dolphin books. We've also had a lot of fun playing Apples to Apples with some new friends. So far, reading buddies has been a very positive experience for me, Leta is so excited about learning to read.听 I forgot how curious and enthusiastic little kids were, there's something so sweet and humbling about hanging out with a 2nd grader.听

听听 听I look forward to making our book and drawing more cheetahs in the near future.听

Post 2:

听听 听Leta is great and we have so much fun with one another during every session. I love her energy for life and learning, but I have noticed that sometimes her eagerness causes her to get distracted easily. Sometimes we run into issues when Leta is not able to sit still and concentrate on a single activity for an extended amount of time. We鈥檝e been working on our book a lot lately. I am the scribe for the plot and write the story at the bottom of the pages, and she draws the pictures for them. She is easily distracted and sometimes completely uninterested in coloring. In an effort to ensure a more narrowed focus, I usually tell Leta that if we can complete a certain amount of pages, then we can move onto another activity. If she鈥檚 being especially unfocused, I try and take breaks in between the page coloring and do another exercise to get the juices flowing again. Yesterday, we both needed a break from the book so we took a piece of paper and made a list referred to as the "Good Things" list. On it, we took turns naming good things about life: cute outfits, sleeping in, watching a movie with your family, slumber parties, bunnies, staying up late, horseback riding, climbing trees, when you have a really good idea, fuzzy jackets, drinking fresh milk in the morning (I laughed), and doing well on your homework-- just to name a few. Honestly, I don鈥檛 really have that many issues with Leta other than occasional focus stuff. I can tell that she likes and respects me, so when I have to recenter her concentration she is very deferential.听

Leta is very intuitive and I would consider this her biggest strength. She works well both in groups and independently, and is in tune with her surroundings. The way she talks about things and asks questions are all strong evidence of how smart she is. She is considerate of others and always makes sure that I am doing okay. I genuinely enjoy talking to her, she makes me laugh all the time. This last wednesday, I was asking her for Halloween costume suggests for me and she took a long minute and paused and then said "Hmmm...well are you pregnant?" (I said no) and she says "well are you planning on being pregnant before Halloween??" (to which I laughed again and replied no) and then she says "well darn I was going to say you would be a great popcorn maker". Yeah, pretty hilarious that girl. I wish I had a list of all the funny things that she has said to me over the past few weeks.听

听听听 听Our book is coming along nicely so far, we are telling the story of a girl named Ashley that gets a horse for her birthday and then goes into the woods to become an adventurer (on her horse) and help save other animals. She and I are both hopeful we will continue to be big and little buddies next semester ("because it would be so awkward if we didn鈥檛 and had to see each other next year and we would both know we would want to be each others buddies." - Leta).听

Post 3:

听听 听I can鈥檛 believe that this semester has gone by so quickly. It has been so much fun spending time with Leta and getting to know her over the past couple of months. As Reading Buddies is coming to an end, Leta and I are working on putting our finishing touches onto our book. We have had a lot of fun planning our plot, writing the story, and coloring the pictures together. I feel very fortunate that Leta and I were paired together throughout the semester. Although we really only got to see one another once a week, our relationship developed tremendously from August to the end of November. Living in Boulder and constantly being surrounded by people your own age (or close to), it鈥檚 easy to get caught up in the day in and day out school-party-work culture. For me, reading buddies served as an opportunity to step away from all of that, even if it was only for an hour and a half each week, and be reminded of the stupid, funny, simple, and innocent parts of life that IS being a seven year old. I know it sounds cliche, but Leta really reminded me that despite the monotonous and frustrating and stressful parts that make up the day to day as an adult, life is so good.听

听听 听This semester, I got to see first hand how much Leta grew as a reader, a writer, and an enthusiast for life. There were definitely days that I walked into the Boulder Public Library unmotivated and exhausted, I know that she felt this way too sometimes. On those days, it was taxing to get through the 90 minutes-- but we always did. She catered to my needs and I did hers. The final product of the book we made together is a testament to all the fun we had this semester. Although I am going into my last semester of college, I hope I am able to be part of Reading Buddies again in the Spring. This program is important for so many reasons and really bridges the gap between the community and the college. I see so much great potential in Leta, she is kind, thoughtful, intuitive, and so thrilled to learn about the world. I am very thankful that I was able to be a small part of hers this year.

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