The Newest Little Free Library in Kansas City!

Many thanks to Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library for sending us a library for our own neighborhood! We are really excited to be working with them to encourage literacy!

Whoohoo!! After several months of coordinating and planning, I'm happy to announce that our Little Free Library is officially installed!!

In March, I wrote about the importance of encouraging literacy among children and in our neighborhoods. I also included a fun way to encourage a love of reading and letters by using Alpha-Bits cereal. Two months later, Alpha-Bits is still the favorite cereal at our house, and we are asked repeatedly, all day long, for "ABC cereal!" I love it!

Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library approached me about installing a library where we live back in January. I jumped at the chance to do that! Reading is so important to our family, and I'd love to see more people spending time with their nose in a book. Our church graciously allowed us to use part of their parking lot to host it, and the head deacon donated his time to get it installed. This has truly been a group project, and I'm so grateful to everyone who has helped bring it to the neighborhood. And now I'm excited to finally be able to give you all of the details so that you can visit our library yourself!

The Little Free Library is a free-standing structure that looks like an over-sized birdhouse. There are estimated to be between 10,000-12,000 libraries across the nation, and they can be found in front yards, parks, or in our case, the church parking lot! Every library can be customized to fit the preferences of the individual who is sponsoring it. Since ours is a joint partnership, ours came already decorated with Super WHY! characters from the popular PBS show and Alpha-Bit cereal letters. So pretty much our library has one of my kids' favorite TV shows AND their favorite cereal on it. It can't get any better than that!

Every Little Free Library is open to the public. You don't need a library card, there is no "check-out" procedure, and no borrowing fines. It operates on a "need a penny, take a penny, have a penny, leave a penny" principle. Stop by anytime, take a book or two that look interesting, and drop off a book or two that you are finished with. The selection constantly changes!

So where can you find our Little Free Library? Ours is in the Blue Ridge Bible Church parking lot. We had it installed right under a light for safety reasons. Just pull into the parking lot and browse through the books! Not in the metro Kansas City area? Look up your area on the Little Free Library website and see what is close to you. I think it would make a fun afternoon adventure to hunt for several of them with the kids!

We were given 10 books to get our library started, and I've noticed that people in the neighborhood are already borrowing and adding to the selection. That means it's working exactly as it's supposed to: encouraging literacy and making books accessible to everyone.

On one of my library checks, I found this book inside. I thought it perfectly describes the whole project:

Are you planning to visit our new Little Free Library or find one close to where you live? Leave me a comment with what you hope to find (or have already found!) inside!

Many thanks to Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library organization for sending us a library for our neighborhood! This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

Many thanks to Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library for sending us a library for our own neighborhood! We are really excited to be working with them to encourage literacy!

Whoohoo!! After several months of coordinating and planning, I'm happy to announce that our Little Free Library is officially installed!!

In March, I wrote about the importance of encouraging literacy among children and in our neighborhoods. I also included a fun way to encourage a love of reading and letters by using Alpha-Bits cereal. Two months later, Alpha-Bits is still the favorite cereal at our house, and we are asked repeatedly, all day long, for "ABC cereal!" I love it!

Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library approached me about installing a library where we live back in January. I jumped at the chance to do that! Reading is so important to our family, and I'd love to see more people spending time with their nose in a book. Our church graciously allowed us to use part of their parking lot to host it, and the head deacon donated his time to get it installed. This has truly been a group project, and I'm so grateful to everyone who has helped bring it to the neighborhood. And now I'm excited to finally be able to give you all of the details so that you can visit our library yourself!

The Little Free Library is a free-standing structure that looks like an over-sized birdhouse. There are estimated to be between 10,000-12,000 libraries across the nation, and they can be found in front yards, parks, or in our case, the church parking lot! Every library can be customized to fit the preferences of the individual who is sponsoring it. Since ours is a joint partnership, ours came already decorated with Super WHY! characters from the popular PBS show and Alpha-Bit cereal letters. So pretty much our library has one of my kids' favorite TV shows AND their favorite cereal on it. It can't get any better than that!

Every Little Free Library is open to the public. You don't need a library card, there is no "check-out" procedure, and no borrowing fines. It operates on a "need a penny, take a penny, have a penny, leave a penny" principle. Stop by anytime, take a book or two that look interesting, and drop off a book or two that you are finished with. The selection constantly changes!

So where can you find our Little Free Library? Ours is in the Blue Ridge Bible Church parking lot. We had it installed right under a light for safety reasons. Just pull into the parking lot and browse through the books! Not in the metro Kansas City area? Look up your area on the Little Free Library website and see what is close to you. I think it would make a fun afternoon adventure to hunt for several of them with the kids!

We were given 10 books to get our library started, and I've noticed that people in the neighborhood are already borrowing and adding to the selection. That means it's working exactly as it's supposed to: encouraging literacy and making books accessible to everyone.

On one of my library checks, I found this book inside. I thought it perfectly describes the whole project:

Are you planning to visit our new Little Free Library or find one close to where you live? Leave me a comment with what you hope to find (or have already found!) inside!

Many thanks to Alpha-Bits and the Little Free Library organization for sending us a library for our neighborhood! This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

Encouraging Literacy with a Box of Cereal

This post and community project is sponsored by Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits. Thank you for reading along and in that way encouraging literacy in our community!

Back in January, I was contacted about partnering with the Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits for a really fun and unique literacy campaign. Our family (all six of us!) LOVES reading! We have so many books in our house that it's kind of crazy. Sean and I both came into our marriage with our own bookshelves, and we quickly realized that books took a huge priority over other furniture when we found ourselves eating at a card table instead of a kitchen table. True story! So anything that involves reading always perks my ears up.

When I was approached about partnering with Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits to help bring something to our community to promote reading and learning, I was all over it!

Today, I'd love to share a little bit about one half of the brand partnership for this literacy campaign, and then I'll share about the other half once our new library is fully installed and ready for readers! This project won't be completely finished until this summer, but I can't keep it to myself anymore, so you get a sneak peek!

Alpha-Bits is one of the brands that I'm lucky enough to work with on this project! You've probably heard of the cereal already, but if you haven't, it's a really fun (and yummy!) way to encourage little ones to learn their letters and practice spelling. It makes sense that they would be one of the partners in this big endeavor!

Alpha-bits is literally a box of cereal in the shape of letters. Even the "Q" is included! My kids thought that this was the best thing ever! Up until now, we've had "circles" and "squares" for breakfast, but the letters are something new. I love finding those little things that encourage learning but don't sacrifice the fun to do so. My goal as a mom is to teach my kids to love learning and love stretching their minds. It's never too early to introduce the big wide world that reading can introduce to a person.

And thankfully, Alpha-Bits isn't one of those sugary cereals that I feel the need to avoid. With 20g of whole grain in every 30g serving, only 6 grams of sugar, and a slew of vitamins and minerals, I'm happy to have this in our breakfast rotation!

So how did we use our letter cereal in our morning routine?

Because my littles are only three years old, we kept our Alpha-Bits fun simple. The kids took turns announcing which letter they were holding and then gleefully eating it. I also helped them each pull out the letters of their name so that we could practice spelling them. That's a lot of fun for a bowl of cereal!

Elijah tried the best he could, but eventually, he decided he was more interested in just getting the cereal to his mouth as quickly as possible. Haha!

So how does a box of cereal play into the library I mentioned above? Well, the Little Free Library is sending me...a library!

I know, I know. Libraries are free by definition, right? This one is unique though because it is set up out in the community, is open 24/7, and operates on the "have a penny, leave a penny, need a penny, take a penny" principle. So anyone at anytime can drop by, browse the library (which looks like an over-sized bird house), and take what looks interesting. They can also leave behind books that they are finished with so that others can borrow them.

Because the Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits are partnering together, our community is going to get one of these library houses for FREE!

I. Love. This!

Supporting community literacy in a fun way!

There are tons more details like where the library will be located and which fun characters I ended up getting on my library...but you will have to wait. In the meantime, there are an estimated 10,000-12,000 Little Free Libraries across the US, so take a minute to search for one near you! And while you are at it, grab a box of Alpha-Bits cereal and help cultivating a love of reading in your little ones!

P.S. If you are in the Kansas City area and have some extra books (kid or adult) that you are finished with, considering helping the community by adding them to our library! It should be up by May. Just keep the books clean and appropriate though, okay? Stay tuned for more details...

Leave me a comment with which characters you think I might have on my Little Free Library. I left a hint somewhere in this post!

Thanks to Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits for sponsoring this post and project for our community! This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.

This post and community project is sponsored by Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits. Thank you for reading along and in that way encouraging literacy in our community!

Back in January, I was contacted about partnering with the Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits for a really fun and unique literacy campaign. Our family (all six of us!) LOVES reading! We have so many books in our house that it's kind of crazy. Sean and I both came into our marriage with our own bookshelves, and we quickly realized that books took a huge priority over other furniture when we found ourselves eating at a card table instead of a kitchen table. True story! So anything that involves reading always perks my ears up.

When I was approached about partnering with Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits to help bring something to our community to promote reading and learning, I was all over it!

Today, I'd love to share a little bit about one half of the brand partnership for this literacy campaign, and then I'll share about the other half once our new library is fully installed and ready for readers! This project won't be completely finished until this summer, but I can't keep it to myself anymore, so you get a sneak peek!

Alpha-Bits is one of the brands that I'm lucky enough to work with on this project! You've probably heard of the cereal already, but if you haven't, it's a really fun (and yummy!) way to encourage little ones to learn their letters and practice spelling. It makes sense that they would be one of the partners in this big endeavor!

Alpha-bits is literally a box of cereal in the shape of letters. Even the "Q" is included! My kids thought that this was the best thing ever! Up until now, we've had "circles" and "squares" for breakfast, but the letters are something new. I love finding those little things that encourage learning but don't sacrifice the fun to do so. My goal as a mom is to teach my kids to love learning and love stretching their minds. It's never too early to introduce the big wide world that reading can introduce to a person.

And thankfully, Alpha-Bits isn't one of those sugary cereals that I feel the need to avoid. With 20g of whole grain in every 30g serving, only 6 grams of sugar, and a slew of vitamins and minerals, I'm happy to have this in our breakfast rotation!

So how did we use our letter cereal in our morning routine?

Because my littles are only three years old, we kept our Alpha-Bits fun simple. The kids took turns announcing which letter they were holding and then gleefully eating it. I also helped them each pull out the letters of their name so that we could practice spelling them. That's a lot of fun for a bowl of cereal!

Elijah tried the best he could, but eventually, he decided he was more interested in just getting the cereal to his mouth as quickly as possible. Haha!

So how does a box of cereal play into the library I mentioned above? Well, the Little Free Library is sending me...a library!

I know, I know. Libraries are free by definition, right? This one is unique though because it is set up out in the community, is open 24/7, and operates on the "have a penny, leave a penny, need a penny, take a penny" principle. So anyone at anytime can drop by, browse the library (which looks like an over-sized bird house), and take what looks interesting. They can also leave behind books that they are finished with so that others can borrow them.

Because the Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits are partnering together, our community is going to get one of these library houses for FREE!

I. Love. This!

Supporting community literacy in a fun way!

There are tons more details like where the library will be located and which fun characters I ended up getting on my library...but you will have to wait. In the meantime, there are an estimated 10,000-12,000 Little Free Libraries across the US, so take a minute to search for one near you! And while you are at it, grab a box of Alpha-Bits cereal and help cultivating a love of reading in your little ones!

P.S. If you are in the Kansas City area and have some extra books (kid or adult) that you are finished with, considering helping the community by adding them to our library! It should be up by May. Just keep the books clean and appropriate though, okay? Stay tuned for more details...

Leave me a comment with which characters you think I might have on my Little Free Library. I left a hint somewhere in this post!

Thanks to Little Free Library and Alpha-Bits for sponsoring this post and project for our community! This post may contain affiliate links. For more info, please see my disclaimer page.