Seven Candy Activities to Make Your Goblins Want to Share

It's Candy O'Clock! The store shelves may be lacking some essential paper items, but they are currently chock full of Halloween candy of every description in those cute little individual bags! Trick or Treating is so much fun, but how many kids can actually eat all the candy in their haul? It's estimated that most kids will consume about 3,190 empty calories from their Trick or Treat bags. For most kids, that won't even make a dent in the stash. Here are some suggestions to make better use of the annual sugar rush and make your classroom goblins want to share!

The Legend of the Switch Witch

My head is currently spinning while trying to find out who owns the concept of the Switch Witch. Apparently, you can't copyright an idea and so the Switch Witch legend is now part of the public domain. The original Switch Witch book is available on that book selling internet giant and also at some smaller booksellers. I purchased a cute witch and book from a Colorado company (switchwitches.com) which I thought would be useful for upper elementary students. This book talks about the magic of Switchcraft. 

The legend was originally created to help a diabetic toddler to see another use for the trick or treat candy that she couldn't eat. According to legend, various Switch Witches travel all over the world before Halloween. They will exchange your Halloween candy for other fun toys/gifts. They watch over you in a way similar to the Elf on a Shelf concept.

My classroom application: My Rainbow City classroom always had a store (We called it the Rainbow City Boutique!) open on Fridays. Kids could exchange classroom dollars earned through good behavior and work efforts for school supplies, handmade items by their classmates, or materials to make their own items to sell. More about how this economy worked can be found here. 

Whether you have a classroom shop or not, you can place a cute witch doll on a table next to a box which can be sealed (like a plastic storage container with lid). Our school was on the edge of a forest. Forests have mice. Need I say more? Didn't think so. 

After Halloween, your students can bring their wrapped Halloween candy to school and trade it in for whatever you (The Switch Witch) decide to offer in exchange. You can use a witch doll or dress up yourself. I'm pretty sure that a parent might be willing to dress up and volunteer for this job as well!

For a followup writing activity, ask your students to write a letter to the Switch Witch about what they would like in exchange for their candy!

What will you do with all the candy you collect? Save it and read on!

Harriet's Halloween

Many years ago, an AIMS (Activities in Math and Science) activity was published in their journal using the picture book Harriet's Halloween Candy. The story was about an anthropomorphic dog who didn't want to share her Halloween Candy. The activity was all about sorting according to different attributes such as chocolate/not chocolate, individually wrapped/package wrapped, plastic wrappers/paper wrappers, by color, by ones they like/don't like, etc. 

Upper elementary kids should be able to come up with four different ways to sort their stash. I made a sorting page for you to use below. You're welcome.

After sorting, my class would make goody bags to be handed out at the local food pantry as a treat for homeless kids or those unable to trick or treat in their own neighborhoods. Some senior citizens centers will take these donations also. 

Cute graphics on this page are from Melonheadz.

Getting to Know Us Again

Depending on how quickly you opened your room and got students back to school, you may or may not have tried this fun Morning Meeting activity. You can play it with Skittles, M&Ms, or any wrapped small candies. I've played it with pennies, and some teachers use toilet paper squares. As students enter the circle, ask them to "Take as many" as they need. As you go around the circle, each child has to say something about themself for each of the number of pieces they've chosen. 

This game can have so many adaptations: Say something nice about a classmate for each piece, say something new that has happened in your life for each piece, tell something new you learned in class last week for each one, use them to tell the steps of something that you know how to cook or build or create.

So many ways to reacquaint ourselves as a classroom community!

Poetry Writing

Here's a funny and fun poem for Halloween from Shel Silverstein's book, Every Thing On It. The cute graphics on this page are from the amazing Glitter Meets Glue. You're welcome again!

Kids can write their own poems, using this as a model. Who do they think invented Trick or Treating? They can also write Five Senses Poems or another poetry form about Halloween. 

STEAM

From Saving Sam (or Fred or...) to Pumpkin Catapults and Pretzel Stick Bridges, there are so many ways to use candy in your STEM/STEAM activities. If you've collected candy from the Switch Witch suggestion, you can use it again and again to supplement your Maker Space and STEM/STEAM activities.

Here's a fun one from my Stepping Into STEAM resource. 

Notes and Awards

Pay it forward! Use some of your "switchcrafted" stash to attach to thank you notes for PTA or Staff Appreciation days. Some years, we have sent care packages to our troops. It is also fun to attach candy to Clean Desk Awards. 

 Candy Book Discussions

 I have used M & M Book discussion cards during Daily 5 time. Wow! Not only was I able to have 10 book conferences in less than one hour, but I could really tell how deeply those books had been read. 

Worked with two multi-level groups of 5 each. Students randomly selected an M&M from their Halloween-sized bags (perfect time of year to try this), and told the group about their book as the prompt directed.

 
Did not hear one "I pass." or one "I don't know." The conversation flowed, and the students were thrilled to keep their cute laminated M & M bookmarks to prepare for their next discussion.  Eight more students signed up for conferences for the next day, and several were heard as they packed to go home that they couldn't wait to get back into their independent reading books that night.
A fun day interacting with my readers! Hope you'll try it!  

For a convenient download of the free pages shown above, just click here! 

BIG NEWS!

If I can do anything else to help make your job easier this year, please let me know in the comments below! If I use your idea for a new blog post, you will win a TpT $10 gift card. If I create a new resource for Rainbow City Learning based on your idea, you will win a free copy of that resource to use in your classroom! (Note: all comments are reviewed before appearing on my blog. It may take a few hours for your comment to appear! Thanks for your patience!)

Wishing you and your class a safe and fun Halloween this year!

For more October thoughts on teaching, be sure to check out the posts below by the amazing bloggers in Teacher Talk. 

If you would also like to be a part of Teacher Talk, we are a group of teacher bloggers who share posts that are heavy on the ideas with just a little selling of our educational materials at TeachersPayTeachers.com.  For more information about joining The Best of Teacher Entrepreneurs Marketing Cooperative, go to https://bit.ly/3o7D1Dv.  Feel free to email me at retta.london@gmail.com if you have any questions. 

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

3

Untamed Teachers

Yinz! Yinz have got to read this book! (Yinz  = Pittsburghese for Y'all. As in Y'all! You have got to read this book!) Just trying to be authentic here. I'm from Pittsburgh. It would be inauthentic to say Y'all. But really - Read this book! It's summer, and you have time now.

I was scrolling through Facebook in the midst of our shelter at home order and came upon a video of Glennon Doyle reading an excerpt from her new book. She was, of course, sheltering at home also. She was on the couch with a quilt, just like me, but was wearing a fabulous and unique sweater. I was wearing PJs. She was wearing the sweater  that she had planned to wear to an in-person book tour event. I loved her voice, and the chapter she read, "Attendants", really spoke to me. It addressed the fear and anxiety so many of us were feeling at the time, and also reminded me of a specific situation I had been in during an overseas flight.

Glennon's reading sent me right off to order her book. I listened to it on Audible and added it to my Kindle library. When my podcast group, We Teach So Hard, decided to read the book together and discuss it during our Summer Reading series, I needed to order the hardcover and actually hold it in my hands. The cover is gorgeous - looks like poured paint and glitter - and the book made it easier to add tabs and to mark up. Our discussion also prompted me to replay the audiobook during my morning walks. Each section of the replay gave me a new thought for the day.

Glennon Doyle's works are all memoir and her life is nothing like mine, yet everything she writes speaks to me on a level that is meaningful in my own life. Try reading this one - I think you will find the same is true. I will talk about a few takeaways that I think are relevant to my teacher life, and I hope you will also listen to our podcast episode.

Cages
In the first section of the book, "Caged", Glennon talks about all the ways that women are caged and limited by the society in which we live. I personally think that our society provides plenty of limitation cages for humans in general. As a teacher, I have many times walked willingly into the cages set up for me. Heck, I even decorated them and added stronger locks to some. The cage of how a teacher should dress, the cage of what you can discuss with your students, the cage of standards to tick off, the cage of how parent contacts should go, and the tiny, suffocating cage of teacher evaluations. There's more, but these stood out to me. Doyle doesn't talk about the teacher life in her book because she is not a teacher (not officially anyway). But wow. So much there to apply to teaching. My teaching was pretty ordinary until I discovered the "key" of imagination. I freed myself and my students by shutting the door and just teaching. I invited my students to "live inside of their imaginations" along with me.

Keys
In the section on "Keys", Doyle talks about the inner work that must be done to break out of the cages. The one that spoke to me (other than "Imagine") was "Know". It took me years to break out of following the traditional molds of teaching because I was too frantically busy trying to stay on top of it all every minute of every day. When I finally took the time (during a seven year hiatus at home with my children) to consider what was good and not so good about my teaching practice, I was ready to return with something much better to offer my students: imagination, joy, and curiosity. I didn't need seven years, and neither do you. A short time this summer away from it all, and the opportunity to look inside is enough. Listening to the audio version of this amazing book is a wonderful trip inside yourself because every section makes you think.

Free
The last section talks about all the ways to break free and to be free. The biggest problem with all of this is that you have to be willing to "burn it down" (get rid of what you may have believed and held on to for your whole life) in order to find freedom. You may need to read, walk away, and go back later to review. Read a few beach reads in between! LOL! My application to teaching here is the ways in which I became a district leader in the last third of my career. I had burned down the expectations that were confining my imagination and thought of some educationally better ways to do things. Some of these were to trust the students to make good decisions during PBL assignments, to decide on the structure and rules of our learning community with the children rather than for them, and to add much more of the arts into my teaching in some unconventional ways.
By the way, you might not have "burned it down" on your own, but you sure broke into some new ways of delivering an education this Spring. You were expected to shift with just hours of warning from in person classrooms to online learning. From what I was able to observe from my perch in retirement, WOW! You nailed it, teacher! You are a cheetah and a prophet! (Read the book and you'll know why I have called you that!)

The We Teach So Hard podcast group would love for you to try these recipes while you make your way through Untamed. Hope you find time for peace and reflection this summer. Yinz owe it to yourselves!

0

Leap Into Learning Blog Hop for Free Teacher Resources

I’m so glad you’ve stopped by my blog. Some bloggy friends and I have joined together to share some freebies that you can use at anytime during the year no matter the season. You can grab a total of 9 freebies by hopping to each Grades 3-5 blog until you end up back here. You can also grab 14 more freebies for Grades 1-2 by clicking on that button.

ABOUT MY FREEBIE

As a third, fourth, and fifth grade teacher for many years, I've loved having a special corner in my classroom for makers. We used to call it Inventor's Center, but now it's a Maker Space, encouraging creativity, ingenuity, and flexibility in our students. It's also great for soaking up that down time with endless productivity! The thinking that happens at your Maker Space will spill over into all subject areas throughout the day. I recommend finding a place in your classroom this year for a Maker Space. I promise it will amaze you!

Here's a forever freebie with directions and supply lists (mostly recyclables and ordinary classroom items) for getting started with your very own Maker Space. Whether you teach science or not, a Maker Space will enhance the teaching of all curricular areas. Just click on the cover graphic below for your free Guide to Getting Started!

Here's what teachers say about this resource:

Once you have your space set up, here's where to find inspiration and activities to take you through the year! For even more ideas, visit Rainbow City Learning on TpT!

 

HAPPY HOPPING!  

3

Using the Arts to Teach Perseverance

"It's a country club over there," my parents could often be heard to say during my fifth and sixth grade years. We had just moved back to the neighborhood and new, progressive school that we had to leave after my Kindergarten year.

We had moved next door to my grandparents and my mom's large and loving family, so as a kid I wasn't aware of the financial difficulties that had caused the move "back home", just thrilled to be up in the business of my young aunts and uncle all.the.time. I was known as the world's youngest teenager, showing up at my Aunt Harriet's after school living room dance parties, and a careful observer of my Aunt Rhoda's makeup application and hair styling as she left for work or dates. They took me to the library every week for stacks of books, taught me to twirl a baton, and drove me to school. We had long and serious discussions about Elvis, Richie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper. A member of a for real actual singing group, The Tempos, actually lived across the street! Two of the songs that they briefly made famous were "Since I Don't Have You" and "See You in September". My grandma always said that Gene was a very nice boy who served his country.  I think he was a friend of my uncle, but who knows? My uncle always seemed to be in his room studying. That room was the only space in my grandparents' house that was off limits to me, but that was ok. He knew nothing about hair and clothes and makeup, and I just went in to look around when he wasn't there. We danced the Strand. We drew and colored, knitted, cooked and ate together, laughed together, and took full part in each other's lives. I missed nothing in the area of life enrichments, and I liked my school and friends.

BUT... the summer before fifth grade, life was heading in a positive direction for my very young parents. My dad finished college, had a CPA practice, and was beginning to invest in deli restaurants among other businesses. They bought their first home, and I returned to my original school in fifth grade while my little sister started kindergarten. Our little brother was nine months old when we moved in, so no school for him yet!

Apparently, while I was gone, our public school system had decided to try out some new programs and practices at the newest building in their district. When I arrived in Miss Brooke's fifth grade, things were happening! Kids who were academically successful appeared to have been placed together in class, so there was never a chance to read any of the books that I had become used to shlepping to school with me every day for four years. (Well, actually three years. Too busy throwing up every day in first grade when reading groups started. Membership in the blue birds was not all it was cracked up to be.) Aside from watching super smart kids learning and responding and interacting on all sides, we had ENRICHMENTS! Yes, our district was on the cutting edge in the 60s with the very beginnings of gifted education. They didn't call it GT or anything like that, but in my opinion, they should have named it something because the confused young parents just called it a "country club over there".

At the "country club over there", we could leave our classrooms without having to make up anything that we missed while gone, and take Creative Dance, Art Enrichment, Science Explorations, and Chorus. We could also learn square dancing and polka. Yes, polka. It was Pennsylvania after all! As a dancing school dropout, I loved Creative Dance the most. Could not believe my good fortune at being part of a group with actual current dancing school students.  (Being a dancing school dropout is absolutely true - I left Saturday morning dancing school for Saturday morning cartoons at the ripe old age of seven because I just couldn't keep up with the other dancers.) In Creative Dance, we were presented with music and could create our own choreography. It was amazing! My love for dancing, nurtured as the world's youngest teenager dancing with Bandstand every day, was restored!

I took that "country club at school" spirit with me throughout the rest of my education and my career as a teacher. As I got to higher grades, I learned perseverance. Perseverance made everything I tried to do better. Study and practice became enjoyable pursuits because there was always a goal ahead, a reason for persevering. I studied harder in French class so that I could spend more time in Ceramics class in high school. I studied for and passed out of basic language arts, foreign language, and math courses in college so that I could load up on Art History and Anthropology. And when I became a teacher, I tried to make sure that my own students had opportunities to explore the arts and sciences as much they possibly could. I did this through project based learning and through centers, including Inventor's Center, an early incarnation of STEAM. My students' journals always had a drawing/sketching/diagramming component. A kid more in tune with art could use more art than words and still succeed in journal writing. I can point to several professional artists today who have told me that they appreciated being able to journal through art in those elementary years.

After that loooonnnngggg intro, this post on Perseverance is turning to the importance of including the arts in an elementary education. We learn to be awesome dancers by dancing. We learn to be artists by crumpling papers, erasing, and starting again. We learn to be writers by writing. I always had two signs in my classroom: Good Writers Write and Good Readers Read. Perseverance is what makes us successful, and I believe that it is best learned in the pursuit of the arts.

When I was thinking of picture books to use with this important topic, I couldn't narrow it down any further than four. I simply took all four out of the library. You don't have to own every book that you touch. I donated three of these when I retired, and just discovered the fourth one. The public library is a great place to find books, especially books that you will use for a brief lesson. School libraries are another great source, if you are lucky enough to still have one. I won't speak badly here of the district that I retired from, but no librarians? Seriously?

The very first book that came to mind was Dancing in the Wings by Debbie Allen. In this book, Sassy is a dancing school student who, unlike yours truly, persevered. She was "too tall" and her feet were "too big" for all the roles and participation that she longed for. Rather than drop out, she practiced, observed, and danced every dance from the wings, learning it as well as if she was on stage herself. Her hard work and perseverance pay off when a director of an important Washington dance festival notices her, chooses her from her entire dancing school and invites her to be part of a performance troupe. This is based on Debbie Allen's life and the experience of her daughter Vivian in dancing school.

Of course, a read of Dancing in the Wings naturally leads to a read of Brothers of the Knight also by Debbie Allen. It's an amazing retelling of the fairy tale "The Twelve Dancing Princesses", and in light of the recent public controversy over whether men should be dancers, it got my attention. In Brothers of the Knight, Reverend Knight is a single father raising twelve sons. The story is narrated by their dog, Happy. Reverend Knight is befuddled by the fact that his sons' shoes are tattered, torn, and generally wrecked every morning, although they appear to have been sound asleep every night. A new housekeeper solves the mystery, and the brothers come clean about their passion for dancing. They had thought it necessary to sneak out to the ballroom at night because they thought that their father would disapprove. Reverend Knight marries the housekeeper, adds dance to his sermons, and all live happily ever after. Dancing with perseverance can sure wear out your shoes!

And speaking of shoes, a story from the childhood of Michael Jordan, Salt in His Shoes, is another great example of how perseverance can lead to success. Michel Jordan was once a short child who wanted to play basketball with the neighborhood kids. He was shorter than they were and had a difficult time keeping up. He measured himself over and over, but never seemed to grow. His dad advised him to keep practicing and his mom advised him to put salt in his shoes and to pray every night to be just a little taller each day. Michael took the advice seriously, praying, salting, and PRACTICING at home. He eventually scored the winning point in a neighborhood game when another player was injured and unable to play. And... as we know.... he grew to be a famous six foot six pro basketball player! Was it the salt? Or the perseverance?

Amazing Grace by Mary Hoffman is also nothing short of amazing as a model for perseverance. Grace loves to read and to act. She loves stories - telling them, hearing them, acting them out. When she learns that her class is about to cast and perform "Peter Pan", Grace wants to be Peter. She is focused on her goal, and sticks with it through practice and auditions even though one classmate tells her that a girl can't play Peter, and another tells her that Peter is white. (Grace is African American.) Enter Grace's Ma and her Nana (gotta love the Nanas!), who inform Grace that those two kids who discouraged her don't know anything. Nana then takes Grace to a ballet performance where a famous brown-skinned dancer named Rosalie Wilkins ballet dances the part of Juliet in "Romeo and Juliet". After the performance, Grace adds the dance of Juliet to her practice, auditions for and gets the part of Peter Pan. Grace is an amazing Peter Pan, and according to her Nana, "If Grace put her mind to it, she can do anything she want." True for Grace. And true for all of our kids.  Putting your mind to it is perseverance!

Sometimes I wonder what might have happened if I had chosen to stick with Chorus when I was told by the teacher to sit in the back where no one had to listen to me. I could have been a famous singer! Nah, I just pursued the arts that mattered to me. Teachers, the important thing is to present the arts as possibilities to our students. Let them tinker and explore. Let them respond to assignments and projects infusing a piece of the arts that is important to them. Find time for performances in class. There are ways! Make your room just a little bit of "a country club over there". You never know what future artist, dancer, singer, writer, or scientist is sitting right before your eyes!

Check out some of the STEAM resources at Rainbow City Learning to add a little art to the learning in your classroom!

Click below for a FREE introductory lesson on using the arts to teach perseverance.

To hear the thoughts of our "We Teach So Hard" blogging group on this topic with lots of book suggestions, just click!

For the blog posts of our We Teach So Hard podcasters, click below!

Teaching Perseverance: Powerful Books to Change a Student’s Mindset

Books to Teach Perseverance

Never Give Up. . . Persevere!

Using the Arts to Teach Perseverance

And... before you go... Check out some amazing posts for the month ahead from my awesome blogging buddies at Teacher Talk!

You are invited to the Inlinkz link party!

Click here to enter

6

Free Week of Morning Meeting Yoga

CLICK HERE or just wait for the popup box 

to subscribe to my newsletter!

0

Summer Book Club for Teachers: Goodbye for Now

What if there was an online dating app with an algorithm so perfect that it could find your perfect match for life in one click? Would you use it? Recommend it to others? Would you think it was even a good thing at all? Sam Elling, computer genius, and main character of the book Goodbye for Now by Laurie Frankel, has created just such an algorithm. The internet dating company that he works for in Seattle loves it, and promptly fires him because they are losing subscription money when users find their true loves on the very first try.

Sam uses his own algorithm to find the love of his life, Meredith. When Meredith's best friend in the world, her grandmother Livvie, dies suddenly, Meredith is devastated. Sam uses his genius coding abilities to create a new algorithm, one that will simulate actual online communication with loved ones who have passed on. It works perfectly, allowing the user to email, text, message, and video call with a deceased loved one as long as a sufficient online footprint has been left. Meredith's years of communicating with her grandmother as Livvie spent every winter in Florida had created such a footprint.

Unemployed Sam's new algorithm worked so well with a virtual Livvie that Meredith and her cousin convince Sam to use the algorithm to create a new company called RePose to share this amazing online service with all who desire continued contact with their loved ones. What do you think of this science fiction concept floating just beyond our reach? Would you use it? Who would you like to keep in contact with?

Although I could quickly provide a list of those I've loved and lost, losing them all occurred way before a mutual online presence could be established. Sam's idea, however, did send me off on a series of pleasant daydreams on how that might look if it could be done.

Each week, over the past three, my podcast group and I have been discussing some amazing and diverse pleasure reads for teachers and offering fun freebies that accompany the book and speak to the topic of each book.  Before you listen to our podcasts, be sure to read the books addressed, because there are spoilers!  Laurie Frankel's book is a perfect summer read, written fairly simply and absolutely naturally, it's like listening and observing the whole thing happening with real and believable characters.  Goodbye for Now is the fourth in a summer reading series of book discussions on the podcast We Teach So Hard. You can find episode #46 here.

Click on the picture below to grab your freebie!

Click below to see all the books and hear the podcasts on We Teach So Hard!

Enjoy the last sweet days of summer because you teach so hard too!

0

March is Reading Month

"It's always something." (Gilda Radner as Roseanne Rosannadanna) Every day that we show up at school, ready to learn, is a cause for celebration. "...and everywhere was a song and a celebration." (Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young. Woodstock, baby.) Seriously, teachers, we can find something to celebrate in class every single day. The biggest celebration, of course, is when the imaginary light bulbs flash with new learning, with a newly converted reader for life, budding author, artist, mathematician, researcher, or maker. As teachers, we are part of those amazing moments all year long. And yet, if we seek other celebrations to bring a learning theme to our students, the calendar is filled with them. Here's year-long resource for an author birthday focus every month.
               
Read Across America Day was originally conceived to celebrate the birthday of Dr. Seuss. You might have been wearing out your "Cat in the Hat" striped chapeau for all the Marches for as long as you've been teaching. Maybe your school focuses on Dr. Seuss, or maybe you just enjoy that celebration in your classroom. Maybe your own teacher tied a red bow around her neck every March, and the memories are filled with warm fuzzies. Or...maybe...you are ready for a new idea?

Did you know that Leo Dillon's birthday is March 2 also?  With his wife, Diane, Leo Dillon was the author/illustrator of forty beloved children's books. Many of the books will bring the concepts of diversity and world peace into your classroom. What a beautiful segue from February is Black History Month! Why not kick off March is Reading Month this year with a fresh focus?

A favorite Dillon book of mine is If Kids Ran the World. My students were so fortunate to have the chance to meet this gentle and lovely couple before Leo's death in 2012, when they visited our school.  The mentoring for our future authors and illustrators was off the charts! If Kids Ran the World was the book they were working on at the time of Leo's passing.

In addition to the beautiful illustrations and words showing how the world would be a better place if we all cared  for others in the way these children do, this book effortlessly becomes a mentor text. Sign up for my newsletter (pop up when you enter this post - You may need to refresh!) before March 1, and I will send you a follower freebie showing how to use this lovely book as a model for writing. Already on my mailing list?   Check your inbox on March 2! Happy Birthday, Leo Dillon!

Some other authors whose work will make for great sharing and inspiration any time of the year: Patricia Polacco, Eve Bunting, and Jacqueline Woodson. These are a few of my favorites, and my students have enjoyed many lessons for reading and writing led off by the works of these writers. 

Try The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco to see how the author's own mother was encouraged to love reading!

Share a read-aloud of The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Alsburg to prompt a discussion of all the things we might enjoy if we give up a little screen time. 

Of course, no month-long celebration is complete without a few official school-wide or grade-wide or even class-wide activities. Some of my favorites:

Hold a Read-In

In no way should this be confused with a clean your desk, grade papers, and enter data day. Wipe that thought from your mind. It's tempting for sure, but a read-in day where you participate right along with the kids is a golden opportunity to encourage a lifelong love of reading (like yours!). Only you can be the role model for that in your classroom. Sleeping bags, blankies, jammies, and pillows optional! My kids always liked making little fort areas under the desks for uninterrupted reading bliss!

Who doesn't love a Parade?

Ask your students to bring in their Radio Flyer or Little Tykes wagons to use as float carriers for a Parade of Books! (Think Macy's Thanksgiving or Disney any day, or The Rose Bowl Parade, but with books!)  Kids work in teams to create a float display (think giant diorama!) of a book. The team members dress as some of the characters as they accompany their float in a parade for school and community!

Spotlight on Books

Create a display with a fun place to leave comments/reviews about a book that the class shared as a class novel, book club choice, or read-aloud. Place a book cover in the center of the display, and kids write comments all around. Examples of fun places to leave comments: black construction paper with colored chalks, small white boards with wipe-off markers, plexiglass with window markers, fabric with glitter pens. I know your kids can  help you think of more! 

Recommended in Rainbow City

That's what we called ours, anyway! Start a weekly or monthly newsletter or blog section where kids can review books they have read and loved. It's a great resource for your students to clip and keep on hand for when they are browsing for new books to read. 

Book Trailers

Use your technology (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, or your favorite movie creator) to have your students create exciting trailers to "advertise" their favorite books. So many resources, directions, and examples of book trailers for kids in this post. (Just click on the director below!)

I loved sharing ideas for March is Reading Month with my podcasting friends, Tracy, Deann, and Kathie. Tune in to "We Teach So Hard" Episode 28 to hear what we came up with!

Happy, happy March! Hope you get to read something you love this month, too!

Read more about it!

March is Reading Month

Great Books to Use with Your Social Studies Curriculum

Celebrate Reading Month!

3 Ways to Keep Your Sanity for March is Reading Month

1