Have you ever tracked your reading escapades on a map or globe? I decided to do this, like five seconds ago, to check out where I’ve been since August! I traveled by train from New York to Wisconsin to Louisiana and then back to Wisconsin. I spent an exciting summer on an island in Maine. And I’m currently hanging out in California with a doozy of a detective (who, by the way, I’m certain is extremely handsome). 🙂 Ah, the life of a reader!
Because I know y’all celebrate reading and writing way beyond National Literacy Month, I’m counting on you having some favorite literacy center ideas. So in celebration of literacy, each literacy center idea—such as alphabet, phonics, word work, reading response, and writing ideas—posted on this blog this month will be considered for publication in an upcoming book or magazine from The Mailbox. And you know what this means! Each of your original ideas accepted for publication earns you a $20 gift certificate. I’m not saying you can share only one idea. Heck, no! You can share two, three, four, or more favorite ideas and have a chance to earn $40, $60, $80 or more in gift certificates toward The Mailbox publications. Cha-ching! Let’s get this celebration started!
Show me the ideas! 🙂
Diane
PS Ideas must be posted on this blog before November 1, 2011.
Before moving to St. Croix, Virgin Islands, I owned and taught at my preschool, Miss Barbara’s Schoolhouse.
I started a “picture pal project” since the preschoolers were not able to write letters yet. We would draw pictures, send them to other preschools and they would return their drawn pictures to us. We learned a lot about the area they lived in and their culture. This started within the United States and spread throughout the world. We also did this with postcards. When we received mail, we placed an apple sticker on the U.S. and World maps in our school.
We had a student attend our school from Japan and there was great excitement to receive mail from her land.
I have also done this with a third grade Social Studies class here in St. Croix.
When my pre-k class gets to our Travel theme, I use the book “Buns Travels Across America.” It’s a book about a rabbit who travels to several famous sites throughout the United States. I place a sticker on each page in the book that shows where Buns visits, and then I put the same sticker on a map so that my students can see where Buns is.
The students really get excited about the book — and being able to “read” a map. 🙂
This month, I started homeschooling with my preschooler, we focused on specific authors. We visited several library locations to find different books by the authors we chose. My preschooler tried to find books by our chosen authors that he had not seen or read. We keep a running list of each author, so he can continue looking. Once we have read all the books we focus on another author.
Rhyming games would be great!