Read Across America Week

 

Looking for some fun ways to celebrate Read Across America Week? I am the librarian/tech or STEM teacher (I actually call it STREAM– Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, Math) in a K-8 school. It can be tricky to find something that appeals to all students K-8, but everyone participated in these fun activities this year!

Bookmark Contest

We had a school-wide bookmark contest! The winning bookmarks are above. Students had to design a bookmark that had something to do with reading. I hung up all the bookmarks in the following categories: K-1, 2-3, 4-5, 6-8. We also have a homeschool program, so I had a category for homeschool as well. I used masking tape to hang the bookmarks and numbered each bookmark on the masking tape starting with #1 in each category. I made a google form and added the number for each bookmark as a multiple choice option. I sent the google form to students on google classroom and gave them a week to vote for their favorites in each category. A google form automatically gives you the percentage for all the votes, so it's easy to find the winner! 

Rewards: Our school has a dress code (solid color polos and solid color pants or skirts), so as reward, I gave every student who entered a dress down pass (they can wear whatever they want for one day). The winners in each category got a dress down pass, a full size candy bar, and we made copies of their bookmark for everyone in their category. For example, all kindergarten and first grade students got a copy of the winning bookmark for K-1. We announced the winners at a school assembly and passed the bookmarks out for students to use during Read Across America Week. 

Spirit Week + 'Silly' Ways to Read

Of course a Read Across America Week wouldn't be complete without some spirit days! We added a little novelty and fun to those spirit days by having 'silly' ways to read all week. Classrooms made reading goals for the week, and if the class met that goal, they got to 'silly' string the principal on Friday! (PLEASE NOTE: Our school voted to celebrate Read Across America one week later than usual because it was the week before spring break. That is why the dates on the flier above don't match the actual dates of Read Across America). 

• Monday: Fox in Socks – Wear crazy socks, and take your shoes off to read with your feet on your desk!
• Tuesday: Thing 1 and Thing 2– Twin day! Dress like someone else, your 'twin' for the day (or dress like several others--it could even be as a whole class that dresses alike!) and buddy read that day!
• Wednesday: Hop on Pop– Wear athletic gear, i.e. sweats, gymnastics or work out clothes and read on top of your desk!
• Thursday: Cat in the Hat–Hat Day! Wear your favorite hat and read outside (weather permitting)!
• Friday: Sleep Book– PJ Day! Wear your PJs and build a reading fort with blankets and desks and read with a flashlight!

Teachers made reading goals for their classes that were age appropriate such as: a certain number of minutes read each day, a certain number of books read or read alouds in class, a certain number of reading assignments completed. The teachers picked a goal with their class and hung their goal sheet on their door so we could all see their class's progress throughout the week. Having silly ways to read in order to reach their goal helped keep things novel and fun (especially the week before Spring Break!).  How did you celebrate Read Across America Week?

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Create Your Own Listening Library

 

Did you know that you can easily create your own listening library to use in your classroom or in your school library? If your students have access to an iPad or google classroom, you can create a listening library in just a few steps! Here is what you will need:

• A link to the read aloud 
• The Safe Share link (20 links are free, $50 a year for unlimited links)
• The QRStuff QR Code Generator link (free)
• 60 pack self adhesive label holder 3.5x3.5 (affiliate link)
• The book that is being read aloud

1. Choose a book and a read aloud.

There are so many great read alouds out there that are already made! My favorite go-to places for free read alouds are Story Time With Ryan and Craig (they are hilarious!) and Storyline Online. Just copy the link to the video. You can always make your own read aloud too, or ask parent volunteers to create them at home. It's a great way for parents to help at school, even if they can't be there to volunteer in person. You can also have students create read alouds to share with other students! 

2. Make a Safe Link

Many of the read alouds you will find are published on Youtube. Unfortunately, Youtube is not a very kid-friendly place, and it's blocked in many schools. But there is a work-around if you have found a safe video to share! First create a free account with Safe Share (if you don't, your link will only last 1 hour. I found out the hard way! 😔)  Then click 'Add SafeView' and paste your Youtube link. This creates a new link for your video without the ads or commercials that pop up. You will have to check with your school technology or IT department to make sure your Safe Share links are not blocked. Click on the share button (it looks like a less than sign with 3 dots) and copy the new url. You can even share this link to your google classroom if you have older students and want to skip the QR code step. (If you're not using a YouTube link, you can skip this step and move to step 3.)

3. Create a QR Code

Go to QRStuff, choose website link, and paste the link you copied from Safe Share. It will create a QR code that you can download or take a screenshot. (No need to save on qr stuff once you have your QR code.) I use a google slides template with squares that are 3.5x3.5 with the title of my book on it. I add the QR code to my template (either insert picture after you have downloaded the QR code in the step above or take a screenshot of the QR code and slide it onto your template). Now print out the QR codes you made and cut out the 3.5x3.5 squares. Stick a self adhesive label holder on the inside cover of your book and slide your QR code in. Now students can scan the QR code in the book and listen to the read aloud. If you ever want to change the read aloud video, or if the link breaks, you can just slide the paper out of the label holder and add a new one. Now your classroom library or school library can also be a listening library!

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Teacher Stuff Newsletter #5: The STREAM Edition

 

Here is the Teacher Stuff Newsletter #5: The STREAM Edition. You have probably heard of STEM, which stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. You may have heard that you can incorporate Art to get STEAM. Well, when you also incorporate Reading, you have STREAM! What better way to incorporate a STEAM lesson than to base it on a picture book? Here are some easy ideas to get you started. If you click on the books it will take you to an affiliate link. This means if you buy the book using my link, I earn a small commission, but at no cost to you. But you can always check these books out at the library too!

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12 Days of Christmas (or December) in the Classroom

Are you looking to add a little holiday magic to your classroom? Try wrapping 12 holiday or winter books for your class--they don't have to be brand new. Unwrap one book each day and read it aloud for 12 days of Christmas (or December). This post contains affiliate links for your convenience. That means I get a small commission if you use my links to buy something, but at no cost to you.

Add these tags to your wrapped books that say "Don't open until _________." Since we aren't at school every day in December due to weekends and winter break, you can plan when to start opening each book so that the last book is opened on the day before break. If you do elf on the shelf in your classroom, it can be a present from your elf! If you don't do elf on the shelf or you don't specify Christmas in your classroom, you can use the tags that are for 12 days of December with books to unwrap from your teacher. You can even ask parents to donate a wrapped read aloud book for the 12 days or Christmas or December so it's a surprise for you as well! You may want to include a sign up genius if you do it this way so you don't get the same book. You can even have the parent who donated the book to come read it to your class! There is a tag for all of these options included in the bundle below.

In my classroom, at the beginning of the year, I added a little fairy or elf door. Throughout the year, we have discovered that they are elves, like the elves from the book The Elves and the Shoemaker. Periodically our elves leave us notes and presents. They are cousins to the elves in the North Pole, so they have been gone for a little while helping their cousins during this busy time of year. But they have returned with 12 read alouds wrapped for the 12 days of Christmas!

Our elves are also friends with the Leprechauns who live in Ireland, and they bring them to our classroom for a visit in March. They play little tricks on us around St. Patrick's Day and we try to catch them! Read more about how I set this up in my classroom in the blog post 3 Back to School Books With Creative Gifts & Activities For The Beginning of the Year. If you didn't start with elves in your classroom at the beginning of the year, now is still a fun time to start! Your first book to open could be The Elves and the Shoemaker which can be a clue to who your new little friends are!

One of the parents in my classroom made this little house for the elves! The kids were SO excited! It is amazing! And we can change out the decor as different holidays come around!

Whoever you decide your wrapped read alouds are from, have fun sharing one with your class for 12 days of Christmas (or December). Here are some of my favorite books to use in this activity. If you are a teacher, you know that this time of year kids are C R A Z Y. Keeping their attention is a daily challenge. You need read alouds that are fun, meaningful, and not too long or you'll lose them. So while I love books like the Grinch and the Polar Express, because they are also movies, kids struggle to sit through these LONG read alouds at this time of year. That is just a teacher truth, so I stick to shorter stories. 

If you focus on the holidays, here are some of my favorites. The stories about specific holidays are a little longer, just FYI . . . 

How To Catch Santa

The Crayons' Christmas

Gingerbread Baby

Moostletoe

Olive the Other Reindeer

Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Sleigh

Tough Cookie

Snowmen At Christmas

The Broken Ornament

Turkey Claus

The Night of Las Posadas

What is Christmas?

Hanukkah Bear

A World of Cookies For Santa

If you want to stick to winter books, these are some of my favorites.

I personally do a combo of both kind of books in my classroom. There are some great activities that you can do with many of these books as well. 

The Mitten

Sneezy the Snowman

There Was A Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow

Snow Globe Family

The Hat

Our Table

Snowmen at Night

The Snowy Day

Snow

Extra Yarn

A Sick Day For Amos McGee

If You Take a Mouse to the Movies

• The Snow Globe Family by Jane O'Connor: This is a story about a family and a family that lives inside their snow globe that mirrors what happens in their family! Here is an activity from Ideas by Jivey called Reading in a Winter Wonderland: The Snowglobe Family . And here is an oldie but goodie-- If I Lived In A Snowglobe by Hope King. I think there are more out there! We also have our students make their own snow globe ornament for their parents as a present. With a picture of their face, they add a body doing something in the snow. Then we add snow or cotton balls. They turn out so cute and original each year!

• Snowmen At Night by Caralyn Buehner: This is a fun story to read about what Snowmen must do when kids are not around at night. Jen Kimbrell has a fun literacy activity that includes coding with this book Fun Coding Activities For Kids that Teach Literacy Skills.
• Our Table by Peter Reynolds: This beautiful book is a good reminder about spending time with family and not getting too caught up in technology. Use 'Our Table' Bingo as "homework" for your students over the holidays. It has opportunities for students to spend time together and share the pictures with you!

Do you have any other favorite read alouds for this time of year? Do you have activities to go with them? Leave them in the comments below!

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10 New K - 3 Chapter Book Series to Add to Your Classroom Library

  

We know how important reading is, but if kids don't WANT to read, it's going to become a bigger problem in the face of how this pandemic is changing education. With the learning that has happened remotely, we NEED kids to want to pick up a book for fun, especially in K - 3. Younger readers need lots of experience with reading if they are going to continue to grow as readers, but books at their reading level are hard to find and not always interesting. Often books that are written for younger readers to decode themselves are contrived to have particular sight words and patterns that support emergent readers. I'm not saying that isn't important – it is. It's one of the foundations for learning to read, and it is a necessary step in the reading process. But it's hard to convince kids to get excited about reading a book that does not have an interesting plot. We need them to find pleasure in curling up in a quiet place to enjoy a story whether in the corner of our classroom or in a corner of their home. That means we need to help them find books that are engaging and relevant to them. We, as teachers, can use those decodable sight word readers in guided reading groups and direct instruction as a focus for our teaching point, but we also need to get kids reading for pleasure on their own. People, especially kids, DO judge books by their cover no matter how the saying goes. So it’s time to start updating our classroom libraries! It's time to get rid of outdated books and replace them with stories that resonate with our students today. While there are beautiful, timeless books out there that we need to hang onto, not all books are created equal. As we think about the books we are putting in the hands of kids, we need to be asking:

- is it relevant and appealing to our students?

- is it representative of all people and their family dynamics?

- does it have underlying bias we need to be aware of?

- will our students want to read it? 

Here are some new early chapter book series that will have your K - 3 students excited to pick up a book and read! Getting them hooked on a series will give them a go-to place for their next favorite read. And EVERY kid can't wait to read chapter books! These books will help your younger readers identify as readers who can't wait to pick up their next book. 

The following links are affiliate links, which means that if you use the link to purchase a book, I do receive a small stipend at no cost you.

Elephant and Piggie

by Mo Willems

The truth is, this is not a new series. And even though there is a "new" book being published, it's not really new. It's just a bunch of old Piggie and Gerald stories put together into one big book. But I HAD to include this series because it is the best! Both boys and girls LOVE Piggie and Gerald. I mean, they L–O–V–E these books! If you have kids reading early chapter books, you absolutely have to have Piggie and Gerald in your collection. It's a no-brainer. And there are A LOT of Piggie and Gerald books to choose from, which keeps them reading! I choose a few to include below, but there are MANY more!

Newest book in the series: An Elephant and Piggie Biggie! Volume 3 published Sept. 22, 2020

Grade level: K - 2

Reading level:  DRA - 12 - 16

                          Fountas & Pinnell - G - I

                          IRLA - 1B -2B

                          Lexile - 180 - 310

          

Unicorn and Yeti

by Heather Ayris Burnell

Unicorn and Yeti has been a newer addition to my classroom library, and it has been most appealing to girls. It is a graphic novel chapter book, which is really popular right now. The storyline is a little too simplistic to make it a favorite, but the readability and the pictures make it a great transition for lower level readers. It is not easy to find books at this level that are appealing for those readers just trying to master fluency by reading more text, so this is a series worth having for that transition. 

Newest book in the series #6 Together to be published Feb. 1, 2022

Grade level: K - 2

Reading level:  DRA - 16 - 18

                          Fountas & Pinnell - J

                          IRLA - 2B - 1R

                          Lexile - 300 - 380

 

   

King and Kayla 

by Dori Hillestad Butler

King and Kayla is a great early-emergent chapter book written in the voice of King, the dog. While written for younger readers, it still has humor and an interesting twist when kids have to infer what King is thinking from his point of view as a dog. It also involves mysteries he has to solve, so it keeps things interesting. This is a series with a lot of sight word reading like Frog and Toad (some of those timeless classics), and Kayla is a person of color, which is always a nice addition to keep libraries diverse. It has been appealing to both boys and girls in my class because they love hearing King's voice in the story.

Newest book in the series: King & Kayla and the Case of the Lost Library Book (King & Kayla, 8) to be published Feb. 1, 2022

Grade level: 1 - 2

Reading level: DRA - 16 - 24

                          Fountas & Pinnell - L

                          IRLA - 1R

                          Lexile - 440L

      

Yasmin 

by Saadia Faruqi

Yasmin books have been very popular with the girls in my class this year. Yasmin is a realistic fiction series with a Pakistani American girl who has adventures that are typical of most 1st and 2nd graders, which make her stories sweet and relatable. One of my favorite things about this series is that Yasmin is a typical second grade girl who is Muslim. Her religion does not play a role in the stories themselves; you just see it in the dynamic of her family. There are very few books in which our Muslim students get to see themselves, so I loved adding this diversity to my classroom library.

Newest book in the series: Yasmin the scientist published Jan. 1, 2021

Grade level: K - 3

Reading level:  DRA - 14 - 16

                          Fountas & Pinnell - H - I

                          IRLA - 2B

                          Lexile - 500

              

Narwhal and Jelly 

by Ben Clanton

If you have not yet discovered the joy of Narwhal and Jelly, it's time to check them out! These two ocean friends (a narwhal and a jellyfish) have very different personalities, but their silly adventures had my students–girls and boys alike– grabbing for these graphic novels. My students actually made a list of who got to read them next because they were in such high demand. Graphic novels are taking off like wildfire and getting kids reading for fun again. Check out this brochure from Harper Collins about why graphic novels are so powerful for our students. 

Newest book in the series: Book #5 - Happy Narwhalidays, published September 8, 2020

Grade level: 1st - 4th

Reading level:  DRA - 24

                          Fountas & Pinnell - L

                          IRLA - 2R

                          Lexile - 520

    

The Notebook of Doom and The Binder of Doom

by Troy Cummings

The Notebook of Doom series, which eventually becomes the Binder of Doom series, has become a recent favorite in my classroom. These mysteries are a little bit scary (but not really--very safe reads for 2nd graders) which makes them fun and silly mysteries for kids. Strange monsters are in this town, and the kids are the heroes as they take notes on the different monster mysteries they solve. This has been a favorite for both boys and girls. There are 13 books in the Notebook of Doom series and 4 in the Binder of Doom Series. I added a few here, but there are more.

Newest book in the series: #4 Binder of Doom Hydrant-Hydra published July 7, 2020

Grade level: 1 - 3

Reading level:  DRA - 28 - 38

                          Fountas & Pinnell - M - P

                          IRLA - 2R - WH

                          Lexile - 460 - 510

   

Zoey and Sassafras 

by Asia Citro

Zoey and Sassafras might be my favorite new series! Zoey, her mom (who is a scientist), and her cat, Sassafras, can see magical creatures. The animals come to them for help when they are sick or hurt. Written by a former science teacher, I LOVE how Zoey uses science, hypotheses, and experiments to solve problems. Because the creatures that need her help are magical, she has to be a creative problem solver. Whether doing research on different kinds of animals or conducting experiments to find the best solution, Zoey, with the help of her mom, cure these magical creatures. It's written in a kid-friendly way with science concepts that kids can try themselves. I love the STEM connections in this series, and I love that Zoey, the main character, is black. We need more books like this so kids of color see themselves in the stories they read.

Newest book in the series: #9 Wishypoofs and Hiccups to be published Oct. 26, 2021

Grade level: 1 - 4th

Reading level:  DRA - 34

                          Fountas & Pinnell - O

                          IRLA - WH

                          Lexile - 600

       

The Bad Guys 

by Aaron Blabey

The Bad Guys is another series of graphic novel favorites, especially for boys. Characters that usually play the bad guy in fairy tales such as the wolf, snake, shark, and piranha want to change their image and become good guys. They try to do good deeds, but not everyone is ready to see these bad guys as good! With a lot of silliness and 2nd/3rd grade boy humor, these bad guys set out on adventures to do good deeds. This series is also becoming a Dream Works animated movie, so it's a great opportunity to get them hooked! 

Newest book in the series: #14 The Bad Guys in They're Bee-hind You! to be published Nov. 2, 2021

Grade level: 2 - 5

Reading level:  DRA - 34 - 38

                          Fountas & Pinnell - P - Q

                          IRLA - WH

                          Lexile - 390 - 540

          

Dogman 

By Dav Pilkey

Dogman. Is it silly? Yeah. A bit ridiculous? Uh huh. Does it make teachers kind of roll their eyes? Yup. Is it an absolute favorite action–adventure graphic novel, especially for boys? Definitely. The boys in my class could not get enough of Dogman this year. It does not have as much "potty humor" as Capitan Underpants (written by the same author), and if it makes kids excited to read, I'm okay with that! I want to instill a love of reading, and like it or not, this does the trick for a lot of our boys who are reluctant readers. It is dead-on boy humor. 

Newest book in the series: #10 Mothering Heights published March 23, 2021

Grade level: 1 - 4th

Reading level:  DRA - 38 - 40

                          Fountas & Pinnell - P - Q

                          IRLA - WH - BK

                          Lexile - 480

        

Who Would Win?

by Jerry Pallotta

We always need to keep a balance of nonfiction books in our classroom libraries, and the Who Would Win? series is a huge hit! The idea of different animals battling each other is a big draw for students, especially boys. While most of the battles in these books are between animals that would never actually encounter each other in real life because they live in different parts of the world (which is explained in the text), it doesn't matter. It lays out stats on these animal like in video games and compares their strengths and weaknesses. I think that is the big draw for kids. And they get to read a lot of nonfiction text features and facts, so it is a win-win series to invest in! There are 25 books in this series, so I added just a few below. 

Newest book in the series: #25 Walrus vs. Elephant Seal published Dec. 29, 2020

Grade level: 1 - 4th

Reading level:  DRA - 34 - 40

                          Fountas & Pinnell - O - Q

                          IRLA - WH - BK

                          Lexile - 570 - 700

   

So as you are setting up your classroom for students to come back in person, try hooking them on a favorite series! We need to keep kids reading!

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