One of my favorite weeks of school is Read Across America Week! Students dress up every day, bring in their favorite books to share with the class, and we do fun literacy related activities throughout the week.
Here are some ideas to help plan a successful literacy week in your classroom.
First, send home a schedule of themed dress up days. These can include school colors, favorite characters, crazy socks, inside out clothes, western day, sports day or anything your class votes on as a dress up day. Asking parents to send in a special treat on the last day of the week, is a great way to involve parents in on the fun!
On the first day, we share books from home, and they get to read outside with a reading buddy. They love to go outside because it is something different than the regular routine. For centers, we do some fun rhyming activities with crafts, nonsense words and a write the room activity.
Crafts for Reading Across America
The next day, we spend time reading books about different cultures. Students can ask questions. They create a hat by coloring their favorite story book cover on the hat. Students may wear this hat all day to share their love of reading with the rest of the school. They wear them while writing about their favorite story.
Wednesday is WACKY WEDNESDAY for our class reading celebration. It is one of my favorite books by Dr. Seuss! I begin the day by reading the book. Students are dressed WACKY on this day. When they go to lunch, I make about 10 items “wacky” in the room. When they return, they need to find the items. Some ideas are to turn the clock upside down, have a shoe hanging from the ceiling, put socks in the tissue box, place a chair sideways, or have pencils in the scissors bin.
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Animal parts are provided and students are instructed to create a wacky animal from the parts. Then, they write about their animal and give it a personality. Sharing the wacky animals is a must if you love laughter!
Thursday is a day for a Wacky Day during math. It is important for students to know that reading is part of real life to help solve math problems. There are 20 addition and subtraction Google Slides. We read the word problems together as one volunteer student drags the parts to the appropriate area on the slide.
Ending Literacy Week
Finally, on Friday we end the week with a BOOK TASTING. This is the student’s favorite activity! There is a video hook where students learn of a book store that was robbed. The owner asks for their help to solve the mystery. They must solve clues which include “tasting” different books in different genres. The room is set up like a restaurant. They learn about how to set a table, using teamwork to solve a problem and different genres of books. It takes about 30 minutes to prep and 45 minutes for the students to complete. Parents can bring in a snack for the students this day also.
