Heather Jones Susan Metcalfe Carrie Baines Lynette Hill.
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LOOK IN MY BACKPACK: ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE HOME LITERACY Heather Jones Susan Metcalfe Carrie Baines Lynette Hill
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Transcript of Heather Jones Susan Metcalfe Carrie Baines Lynette Hill.
LOOK IN MY BACKPACK:ACTIVITIES TO PROMOTE HOME LITERACY
Heather Jones
Susan Metcalfe
Carrie Baines
Lynette Hill
Greeneville, TN
Located between University of TN and Bristol Motor Speedway
Home of the 17th President, Andrew Johnson Population 15,198+/- (from 2000 Census)
Greeneville City Schoolswww.gcschools.net
2700 students served through our school system
4 Elementary Schools EastView Hal Henard Highland Year Round Tusculum View
Greeneville Middle School Greeneville High School
Greeneville has been the recipient of numerous national awards.
Greeneville City Preschool
100 children served through 5 classrooms
Funding:Three are lottery funded classrooms.Two are pilot funded classrooms.
Four classrooms are partnered with the Head start program. Our partnered classrooms serve as a state model for other partnerships.
Greeneville City SchoolsGreeneville, TN
5 preschool teachers
1 Family Resource Specialist
1 Preschool administrator
Why do literacy backpacks?
Head Start started a take home literacy program 8 years ago with 5 backpacks.
The children were excited about checking books out from school and taking them home.
The program was expanded by purchasing journals for each child in the program.
Additional books and materials were purchased using grant funds.
Research
“Home or family literacy activities for young children will help to develop vocabulary, language, phonological awareness, and interest. They cultivate understandings of narrative structure, functions and concepts of print and foster letter and word recognition as well as overall comprehension skills.”
Research Cont.
“Parents inherently want their children to succeed. An increasing body of evidence points to a child’s early years as critical to future academic and lifelong success, a shift towards greater and more structured in-home teaching is taking hold within families of young children.”
http://www.ccl-cca.ca/CCL/Reports/LessonsInLearning/LiL-1Feb2006.htm
Children‘s Notebooks
Each child has a 3 ring binder that goes home with him or her each night. The binder has 4 sections:Responsibility sheetNewslettersParent CommunicationLiteracy Journal
This is used as a daily communication tool between home and school.
Check-Out procedure Each child has a check-out list in a 3-ring
notebook. On the check-out list is a place for the name of
book, date checked out, date returned, and a column to check if they wrote in the journal.
Each child places his/her notebook and book buddy in a basket located near his or her cubby.
During rest time the teacher writes in each child’s notebook and checks in his/ her book during rest time.
Each child is allowed to check out another book, or book buddy, when he or she has returned a book.
Why do I utilize literacy backpacks?
Research shows that reading aloud with young children improves reading skills.
Literacy backpacks enhance parent/ child interactions.
This program instills a love of reading for pleasure.
How Book Buddies Were Developed
Activities related to books in the classroom library were developed. These were designed to enhance skills taught at school.
Materials that were currently or readily available were used.
Mailbox magazines have an extending the story section that was used for several books (Today I Feel Silly and Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf).
Developing book buddies continued…
Information pages were developed for each book buddy. These pages include the following: Name of bookList of activities with instructionsList of materialsCD of book (if available)
If a book buddy is returned with materials missing, the family is asked to replace the materials before checking out a new book buddy.
Growing Vegetable Soup
The Very Hungry Caterpillar
Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf
Mouse Paint
I Love You Stinky Face
Froggy’s Frolics We have a class mascot named Froggy.
Froggy is sent home with a child to spend a couple of nights.
The child journals about what Froggy does at his/ her house.
When Froggy is returned, we read Froggy’s story to the class. The child who had Froggy shares this with his/ her friends.
Froggy
Froggy’s Frolics
Froggy’s Frolics
Froggy’s Frolics
Making Book Buddies Find appropriate books from both classroom and
personal library. Use Mailbox, Carson-Dellosa teacher helpers, and
other teacher materials to find appropriate activities for the Book Buddies.
Make Literacy/Home Connection explanation sheet and instruction sheet for activity.
Make each child a literacy notebook and give explanation of what is necessary for the journal on the first page. Examples may be included.
Send home with child over the weekend. Expect return on Monday.
Square is a shape
Who said red?
Mr. Frog Activities Mr. Frog is our classroom stuffed pet. Mr. Frog goes home with a child each weekend.
We use this as an incentive for good behavior. We put a child’s name in a hat if they have not pulled a discipline frog and draw for the week’s winner.
Mr. Frog attends every function that the student attends throughout the weekend and the student records this in Mr. Frog’s journal. The student also illustrates a picture of Mr. Frog’s weekend activities.
Mr. Frog then returns to school on Monday morning with the student.
Mr. Frog
Mr. Frog
Mr. Frog
Mr. Frog
Mr. Frog
How Often Do Book Buddies Go Home?
Book Buddies go home every Friday. At the present time we only send home a few every week because of a limited number of Book Buddies.
A Checkout Workbook is used to check out the Book Buddy and to check off return.
Check out over the weekend provides parents/students more time to complete the activities without weekday interruptions.
The Five Senses
Popcorn
Favorite Shape
All I am
Favorite Color
What Are the Expectations for Literacy Journals?
Parent participation is the first and foremost expectation of the Journals. We do expect the parents to participate. The more time that the parents spend with the child doing exciting home activities and reading with them, the more importance the child will put on reading in the future. This will make them life-long readers and learners.
So how do I start???
Have a collection of books that the children can check out. Small board books seem to be the most durable.
Have a check out system or someway to know who has what book.
Decide how you want to put your kits together. What materials, teacher made vs. store bought??
Mrs. Carrie’s Literacy kits
Board books or hard back books are chosen for durability.
Instructional money was used at the beginning of the year to purchase these materials.
Instead of backpacks, plastic folders are used. Many children bring their own backpack, and if they do not the folders are durable enough to make it without the backpack.
All books are recorded on tape for parents who are illiterate or do not feel comfortable reading out loud to their child.
Continued There are many useful websites to gain ideas
and clipart that follows the books used. Some examples include Brown Bear, Polar
Bear, Big Red Barn, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, the Mitten, and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.
One skill is selected for emphasis with each book.
Some examples of these skills are sequencing, counting one to one, letter recognition, and recalling.
Continued
Spanish literacy kits are included for Hispanic families.
My title page, instructions, and the books are in Spanish. The reading on tape is in English, so children can hear the story in English also.
Feedback Backpacks and journals are checked every
Thursday. Each child is called individually to discuss their journal entry. If they did not write in their journal a note is sent home asking the parent to please read with the child and help with the journal. The importance of parent/child reading times is stressed in the classroom newsletter. If necessary, this will be a topic for discussion at parent/teacher conferences.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear
Big Red Barn
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
Ella the Elephant Once a week a child is able to take Ella
home with them for the evening. The parent is to document the evening in Ella’s journal.
Ella is to be brought back the next day with the journal.
The teacher reads the journal entry with the child and discusses the fun they had with Ella that weekend.
Parental feedback from this activity is very positive.
Take Home Library Children choose and check out board books
through the week and draw a picture about the story, and their parents write what they say.
An assistant manages the take home library.
Every child has a journal that stays in his/her backpack. This journal is also used for the literacy packs.
Check-out center
Lucy the Ladybug
Lucy goes home with a child nightly (except on weekends).
She has her own journal with instructions.
They journal about what Lucy has done at their house for that night.
When she has been home with each child, she will re-visit each child’s home.
Lucy
Literacy packs Twenty literacy packs were created using books,
puppets, stuffed animals, manipulatives, etc. in the classroom
A prop and instructions were included with each book and placed in a gallon zip-lock bag.
The children check them out on Friday and return them on Monday.
The packs are numbered 1-20 so each child has an opportunity to take each pack home.
If any materials are missing, the child cannot check another pack out until the materials are replaced.
The Button Box
Froggy’s Sleepover
The Parakeet Girl
Piggies
The Rainbow Fish
Questions???
If you would like the clipart for Polar Bear or Brown Bear, I can send those to you as an attachment in an email. My email is [email protected]
On-line Resources
www.thevirtualvine.com www.themailboxcompanion.com www.janbrett.com www.pre-kpages.com/buddy_bags.html www.hubbardscupboard.org/literacy_kits
.html www.carsondellosa.com (go under
section fun ideas and activities) www.dltk-teach.com
