The Caterpillar Reading Log

I am a collector of a lot of things but one collection I have been adding to since I was a little girl is children's books.  Because of my obsession with and love of books, my own children had a personal children's library in their own home.

One of their favorite books was The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle.

This book inspired a reading log that decorated our playroom when my children were young.  I made a caterpillar head out of construction paper.

For each book one of my children read, a would cut out a circle and on it we would write the book title, author's name and my child's name.  We would then add the circle to the caterpillar.

Pretty soon, the caterpillar snaked around the playroom walls multiple times.  My children were excited to see the progress and wanted to see how long they could make the caterpillar grow.

I was reminded of that reading log caterpillar as I opened our refrigerator door this morning.  There, stuck on the door was my daughter's reading log for the month of September.  It's just a blue sheet of paper with a picture of a book for each day of the month.  She just needs to color in the book when she has read 20 minutes for the day.  I miss the caterpillar log and those caterpillar days..........

"Any book that helps a child to form a habit of reading, to make reading one of his deep and continuing needs, is good for him."  -Maya Angelou