Preschool Family Reading Night: Pajama Jam with Dr. Seuss

I had the honor of hosting my final Family Reading Night at my daughter’s preschool last night.  In a late celebration of Dr. Seuss’ birthday (March 2^nd – Read Across America Day), the theme was “Pajama Jam with Dr. Seuss.”  Students and parents wore their pajamas and participated in several Dr. Seuss related crafts and read alouds:

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish

Students were provided with several fish to color red and blue.  After coloring and cutting out the fish, children put the fish in a pattern, punched holes in them and strung them on a piece of yarn.  They were encouraged to hang their fish banner at home.

Dr. Seuss Door Hanger

Students were provided with a foam door hanger and foam Dr. Seuss themed stickers.

Dr. Seuss Bingo

Thanks to my friend and fellow educator, Meredith, who created an awesome Dr. Seuss bingo board, parents were encouraged to read at least three Dr. Seuss books to their child.  If they read three, they received a Dr. Seuss bookmark as a prize.

In addition to these fun activities, students also heard a special read aloud of One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish by the director of the preschool.  They also enjoyed a snack of rainbow goldfish to match the “red fish, blue fish” mini-theme.

©2011 by Dawn Little for Literacy Toolbox. All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Family Literacy: “Fall Fun” Family Reading Night

November is National Family Literacy Month.  This month I will post online and real world resources related to family literacy.

Last week, I hosted our preschool Family Reading Night.  The theme was “fall fun” and families were encouraged to read to perform a task.  This was the fourth Reading Night event I’ve coordinated for my daughter’s school.  This one was a bit bittersweet, because she is moving on to kindergarten next year.

To prep for this Reading Night, I found or created two fall related crafts.  The first one was a Paper Plate Scarecrow from DLTK – a fantastic site for crafts for all ages!  The second craft I created myself using the familiar “hand tracing” turkey.  I also located a fun recipe, Sweet T.O.M. Turkeys, from Family Fun magazine.

I always like to provide a little bit of background literacy information for parents at these events.  I developed Reading to Perform a Task for parents to have a few strategies on hand as they read with their children.

In preparation for the event, the Community Association (our parent group) kindly helped me stuff folders so that each family had the necessary supplies to perform their tasks.  Each folder contained the info sheet for parents, the directions for the two crafts, the materials for the crafts, the recipe for children and their families to make at home, and a free book!  Our Community Association has a small budget and with that I was able to purchase 25 dollar books from Scholastic book clubs.

Families enjoyed creating crafts, listening to the director read aloud a few Thanksgiving based books, and eating snacks. We had a great turn out and everyone had a great time!

Do you want to plan a Reading Night for your school?  Email me at DLittle [at] linkstoliteracy [dot] com to find out how I can help.

©2010 by Dawn Little for Literacy Toolbox. All Rights Reserved.  All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Preschool Family Reading Night, Part II: Discovery Baskets

A few weeks ago, I hosted our second Family Reading Night this year for my daughter’s preschool.  I’m always amazed and excited at the number of families that attend.  The Parent Association, which I’m a contributing member of, is hosting Spring Fling in a few weeks.  This is a day when families can come together, enjoy a picnic lunch, a petting zoo, and spring related arts and crafts.  Knowing this was coming up, I chose to make the theme of reading night related to spring.  So, families enjoyed “Discovering Baskets of Hands-On Fun” with a spring theme.  It was a night of building background knowledge to help prepare students for Spring Fling.

I created Discovery Baskets using six sub-themes of spring.  Baskets included the following themes:

• Caterpillars/Butterflies
• Baby Chicks
• Animal Babies
• Gardening
• Kites
• Birds

Each basket had several fiction and informational texts for parents to read aloud with their children and a hands-on craft or activity.  Students had fun creating butterflies out of coffee filters, making baby chicks out of pom-poms, sorting and matching animal babies and their mothers, sorting packets of seeds, creating flowers out of cupcake papers, making kites, and creating their very own bird nest out of playdoh and twigs.  It was a fun night!

Children and Parents Create Chicks

Children Sort and Match Animals and Their Mothers

A Cupcake Paper Flower

Would you like to create a Family Reading Night for your child’s preschool, but don’t know where to begin?  Check out Links to Literacy for more information!

©2010 by Dawn Little for Literacy Toolbox. All Rights Reserved.  All Amazon links are affiliate links and may result in my receiving a small commission. This is at no additional cost to you.

Family Reading Night for Preschoolers: Turkeys and Texts

Last night, I hosted my second Family Reading Night for my daughter’s preschool.  If you ask me, we really can’t start young enough when it comes to introducing literacy to children.  As a parent volunteer in her school, I do all I can to incorporate literacy into any extracurricular programming.  So, last night’s program was all about “Turkeys and Texts.”

The kids had two arts and crafts activities they could complete:  a handprint for a Thankful Tree, and Marshmallow Indian Corn, an activity that I borrowed from No Time for Flash Cards.  I also had Thanksgiving themed coloring sheets available for the children to color.  I had two Thanksgiving themed read–alouds and informational folders were available for parents to take home.  Each folder contained a free book and a resource of hands-on literacy activities parents could complete at home with their preschoolers.  In between the formal events that were set up, Thanksgiving and fall related books were spread around the room for parents to read to their children.  At the end of the evening, I conducted a book raffle.   Ten lucky families went home with a brand new Thanksgiving themed book.  Of course, we had Thanksgiving themed snacks as well!

As the holidays are among us and in response to a suggestion from the parent committee that I am a part of, I also added a charity component this year.  I prepared a Book Swap.  I asked families to donate their gently used children and adult books.  In return for their donation, families received one ticket for each book they donated.  The books were displayed so that when families attended Family Reading Night, they could browse the books and use their tickets to “purchase” “new” books.  All remaining books will be donated to a local hospital for use by their patients.

All in all, it was a great evening.  The kids had fun and it provided families with a little quality time together to just enjoy books.  I kept it very low key and pretty unstructured so that families could enjoy their time together.

Would you consider hosting a Family Reading Night for your preschooler?  Have you hosted/attended something similar for a preschooler?

©2009 by Dawn Little for Literacy Toolbox.