Literacy Gifts

Jen, Sarah, and Ruth gave me some fantastic ideas about ways to make the launch of writer’s notebooks and using the classroom library more exciting for children in September. I thought their ideas were brilliant and will be doing both this-coming school year.

• Classroom Library
  
  • Semi-organize the books in the classroom library before the start of the school year.
    
  • WRAP UP the entire classroom library, and boxes that contain the classroom library books, for the kids as beautifully as possible. Then, let them unwrap the library sometime during the first week of school.
    
  • Don’t categorize the books yourself. Instead, wait for the children to come and categorize them, create the labels for the book baskets, etc.
    
    • This will give the kids a feeling of ownership when it comes the classroom library.
      
• Writer’s Notebooks
  
  • Instead of handing out the notebooks to the kids and having them decorate them, WRAP THEM UP as presents first.
    
    • Inside the notebook you can put the stuff you normally write inside each child’s notebook (e.g., his/her name, including a notebook poem, etc.)
      
  • Hand each child their present, which is obviously a writer’s notebook, right before they decorate them.
    

  Can you feel the excitement a child would feel when walking into a classroom and seeing PRESENTS during the first week of school?!!?!

  Thank you Ruth, Jen, and Sarah for these fantastic ideas!