Mrs. Alaska United States 2010: August 2010

I had the honor of being invited to be a guest reader at Thread's Book Party in the Park. Thread, formerly known as Child Care Connection is an agency I have worked with for several years. They are one of the organizations I do Early Childhood and Child Development trainings for.

Thread is a statewide network of professionals who work individually with families and early educators to ensure that they are knowledgeable and supported in guiding children to lifelong success. Thread offers services to families, communities, and early educators in their attempt to ensure bright futures for Alaska's children. As a resource and referral agency, Thread aims to empower parents and early educators with information and resources that will support meaningful adult/child relationships and healthy child development. One of their important roles is to provide child care referrals to families and training for child care providers.

The quality of early care and education a child receives is directly related to the education and training of his/her early educator. Thread provides multiple training and educational opportunities to individual early educators and early care and education programs. They provide both on-site and classroom based trainings to enrich early care and education experiences for Alaskan children and families. Thread is committed to working with individuals, early care and education centers and homes to improve the overall quality of early care and education programs in Alaska.

Recognizing parents as a child’s first teacher, thread understands that families want the best for their children including ensuring they have great care and maximizing their development and learning potential. Thread staff are dedicated to helping families make informed choices about early care and education by providing customized child care referrals and providing individualized information, community resources and short term support to meet families needs. Thread supports all families to maximize their child’s experiences in quality care and learning.

One of the community activities Thread does is their Book Party in the Park, and annual event that features music, games, and lots of other development-based activities for kids, and most importantly...FREE books! I was very honored to be featured as one of their guest readers this year. I brought along a bunch of my favorite picture books (wore my Very Hungry Caterpillar shirt) and enjoyed my time reading aloud to the crowd of youngsters gathered around. Between being a parent and a teacher I've done my fair share of reading aloud, but I can't remember ever doing it with a microphone. That took a little getting used to!

Senator Mark Begich was also on hand to give his remarks about the important of early learning and literacy and to pledge his continued support or Thread and other programs like it that support children and families in their quest to securing school and life success.

I'm very grateful to be a part of such an active, selfless group of colleagues who work tirelessly for Alaska's children and their families. For more information about Thread you can visit their website at http://www.threadalaska.org/

Here are some of the official photos from Mrs. United States, taken by Joe Pier:

With Tammy Johns-Brown, Mrs. United States 2009 at Registration

With some of the other delegates at our welcome dinner

With my line leader buddy, Mrs. Alabama. We developed our own combination of hand signals, eye contact, head nods and cues to keep us perfectly synchronized as we took the stage and lead our groups in the opening number.