Summer Reading

We have made it to the summer!! Well- I am doing summer school.. but I consider it's summertime! Summer means more time for reading books, hanging by the pool, and catching up on life.

I love all the programming that our public library does (You can check out Irving Public Library Here) and this year the theme is Tails and Tales.  Since I am doing k-2 early enrichment I chose to go along with the same theme.

I used Canva to create this image

I had a chance to plan with the 3 other librarians (Christine, Ericka, and Wendy) and we came up with several ideas. 

Our first week of summer enrichment was short:
*We chose to have all classes come into the library to check out books (1 class at a time in increments of 20 minutes)
*We put up a Tall Wall- this was an area where we invited students to compare their height to those of different animals. For each animal was a picture of the animal (from one of our digital databases) and a QR code that led the students to a Pebble Go article.

*We had a pawprint Scavenger Hunt. We put pawprints up at the nurse's office, cafeteria, art room, PE room, and library. These sheets had a pawprint picture, QR code that led to Pebble Go and a Picture of the animal. In hindsight- I wish I had clues and the picture rather than the name and picture of the animal. 

    --both Tall Wall and Pawprints were created in Google Slides
*We invited staff to dress up as if they were going on an adventure the first day. I found some cute binoculars from Wal-Mart for $5, a hat from Party City and threw on a pair of khakis and dark green shirt (I of course also created a TikTok

Lesson Ideas:

To go along with the Tails and Tales I chose a book for each week.

The Three Billy Goats Buenos by Susan Middleton Elya and Miguel Ordonez- a fairy tale
What Do you Do if You Work for the Zoo by Steve Jenkins- non-fiction
See the Cat- Three Stories about a Dog by David LaRochelle and Mike Wohnoutka- tails

Jackrabbit McCabe and the Electric Telegraph by Lucy Margaret Rozier and Leo Espinosa- tall tail

I will see each class for about 25 minutes every week where I do a lesson and check out books. Teachers also have the option to sign up for another time during the week to check out books. 

This week we looked at the words Tails and Tales and talked about the differences and what they meant.  We then shared different animals that had tails.

After some collaboration, we also created a Summer Reading Bingo. This Bingo board was created in Google Docs and invites students to use our Summer Reading Website, go on virtual field trips, check out all the things that our local library has to offer, and more. Click this link to make a copy of your own.

 

My personal goal is to read 10 books this summer. I had a chance to read 2 over this last weekend while I was on the road to visit family.

What are you doing to promote summer reading? I hope to also do some things with my middle school students- more to come!