We’re a reading family. I always have my nose in a book (even if it is a horribly cheesy book that features teenage vampire love). FireDad loves to read. And it seems we’re raising two little readers as well. If you could glimpse at my living room floor right now, you might think a library had blown up. But, no, we have just finished up an evening read-a-thon. I’ll clean it up soon. I promise. But the mess was worth it. Watching LittleBrother’s vocabulary expand in front of my face fills me with pride. And watching BigBrother’s brain make connections and his imagination sore through the pages of a book, well, it makes me melt. And so we’re proud to bring you this post… and giveaway!
To help get the word out about National Reading Month (March), we’re participating in a giveaway with Leap Frog! That’s right. Leap Frog! A huge favorite in our house!
The prize is a Leap Frog TagReader bundle that includes Dr. Seuss’ Cat in the Hat and Green Eggs and Ham. It also comes with a story called Ozzie & Mack. If you’ve got a child in the 4-8 year age range (or surrounding ages) who is working on readking skills, this is definitely something you want to pick up. Don’t believe me? Check out this comprehensive review. But, as a real quick overview, it’s basically a pen (no ink!) that helps your children learn to read. (Did any of you have something similar in the 80′s? Because I did. But this is cooler.) It can hold up to five books. And there are bunches of compatible books! Win!
So, how do you win? What’s the catch?
First off, I want you to visit the Leap Frog Reading Pledge and pledge to read some hours with your children. (Or grandchildren. Or siblings. Or what have you.) The point of this giveaway is to raise awareness about the fact that it is National Reading Month and to inspire parents to read with their children. It’s just so important to read with your kids. I know that FireDad and I both have such a love of reading because our parents took the time to read with us.
Okay, now that I trust you have made a pledge to read (which involves a coupon for you for $10 off TagReader systems and books…), here are the steps to enter.
1. Read this great review (includes pros and cons) of the TagReader system.
2. Come back to my post here and tell me in a comment what you expect will benefit your child the most with the Leap Frog TagReader system. You may do this once.
You want some extra entries?
3. Tweet this giveaway on your twitter stream and bring me back the individual URL of your tweet (found by clicking on the time that you posted your tweet). Post it as a new, individual comment. You may do this once. Please copy/paste this tweet: It’s National Reading Month! Celebrate by entering to win a Leap Frog TagReader at Stop, Drop & Blog! http://tinyurl.com/SDBtag
4. Blog about it on your blog, linking back to this post! Include a link to the review in your blog post, please! After doing some, come back to my post here and post it as a new, individual comment. You may do this once.
5. Use other social media (facebook, digg, stumbleupon, etc) to link this post. After doing so, please return to this post with the username and link (if applicaple) to your shared link in a new, individual comment. You may do this once per social media engine.
The contest is open now through March 26, 2009 at 12:00pm EDT. At that point, this post will close to new comments and a winner will be picked via random.org. One winner will be chosen and contacted via email. Winner will have 12 hours to reply or another winner will be chosen. Winner must reside in the United States. Winning will be shipping straight from vendor. (Meaning, I don’t have it in house!)
So, get to entering and sharing word about the contest. And if you want to up your chances of winning, check out these blogs: 3 Carnations | So Much More Than a Mom | Goddess in Progress | What about Mom? | Parenting by Trial & Error | My Sweet Baboo | Verbatim | Miss Britt | Callapidder Days. They’re all giving away the same package. Go enter!
[Thanks to Leap Frog for the chance to participate in something as awesome as National Reading Month. And thanks to Christy Matte for such an amazing review.]
Updated at 4:01pm, March 26, 2009: Winner Amanda, chosen by the random.org number generator, has accepted the prize. Thank you all for your entries. Now get to reading with those kids!