Thursday, June 30, 2011

At-home activities for reading time!

Part of our first grade homework is to have the students read for 60 minutes per week. Our team created this "bingo" card of ideas for follow-up activities after they have read their just-right book, library book, favorite book, etc. You could use this many ways; we would have the kiddos complete one activity from the board per week, totaling one whole grading period (we have 9 week grading periods.) We would count these activities as a reading grade. Both the kids and parents really had fun with these ideas! We tried to include a little something for each students' interest, whether it be typing, making a game, writing a new story, etc. Click on the link below to grab a copy (it is NOT a pdf, so that you can change the wording to fit your needs.) Happy summer!
https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=1h0h3snln1mP9ISGXiQ6yH2ABqHHUE86MchTwG5ZjT2g&authkey=COuz1rwG

Tuesday, June 21, 2011

Yummy books!

Our first grade students finished off the school year presenting an *edible book report.* They LOVED working on this! Each student read a book of their choice and then thought of a food item that reminded them of their book. They brought the food to share with their classmates. We had such a great variety of books AND edibles! Everything from The Hobbit (tea and cakes) to the Happy Birthday Book by Dr. Seuss (birthday cake) to Popcorn by Frank Asch (you guessed it..popcorn!) Our team all did this activity differently: Suzanne had all of her students present their reports/food items on the last day of school, making it a fun last day of school project! Others of us divided the assignment up so that 4-5 students per day would present their food items. (I had the friends who brought a "healthy" snack present before lunch...the friends with lots of sweets presented towards the end of the day.) So, you can see that you can work it any way you'd like. I have included a link here for our example sheet, including a parent letter. This is NOT a pdf, so that you can make changes as needed. Happy reading! :)

Parent letter: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=14APZUDndPY3ElXx4XrlLwT58GTrb8i3Zrq5w76WejcI&authkey=CLa17fcD


Book report format: https://docs.google.com/leaf?id=1iP29GwQ5ploXrG8UaFRL5QO3D5Xrkt2-_vpUK_3G5Hk&authkey=COT90rgL