Monday, May 30, 2016

A Day Late and a Dollar Short

Earlier this spring, Schools of Hope tutors had an training on preventing Summer Slide. MaryAnn Nickel had some great ideas for items to put in student folders. After assembling my student folders, I found many more places to find free printables to include.

Scholastic has printables for ages 6-7 and Ages 8-10 and a Parent's Guide to Fly Guy with printable activities. If you search for an author's name on the website you may find more games or activities to include.

The National Wildlife Federation has printable games, recipes and other activities for kids.

Children's author, Jan Brett, has printable Activities and Games pages on her website.


Other children's authors that have free printables are Doreen Cronin (Activities) and Kevin Henkes  (Activities).

There treasure trove of actual stories is the Highlights Free Printables and the Stories (fiction), Articles (non-fiction) and Poetry pages.

Reading is Fundamental has  Feed Your Brain Word Games printables.

These sites are available to both tutors and parents and provide anyone with internet access and a printer plenty of activities to keep kids interested.

Thursday, May 19, 2016

Picture Books



Pictures books are also valuable for older readers. The 2014 Caldecott Medal went to Brian Floca for Locomotive and the 2008 Caldecott Medal went to Brian Selznick for The Invention of Hugo Cabret. Both books are for an older reader about 8-12 years old. 

Monday, May 16, 2016

The Importance of Reading to Your Kids


David Baldacci is the author of many thrillers for adults and the fantasy novels The Finisher and The Keeper,  39 Clues: Day of Doom, Freddy and the French Fries: Fries Alive and Freddy and the French Fries: The Mystery of Silas Finklebean for kids.

Hat tip: Raising Readers

Tuesday, May 3, 2016

Children's Book Week 2016


Children's Book Week is the annual celebration of books for kids and the joy of reading. It is the longest running literacy initiative in the country for children. This year it runs from May 2 to May 8th.



You can find out more about the history and purpose of Children's Book Week and this year's artist here.

Monday, May 2, 2016

Ideas for Student Folders

 While looking for bookish quotes to put in my students' end of the year folder I thought I'd share with you some that I liked. You can copy and print them by clicking on the photo and then printing them on your computer. Some of these pictures are coming up larger or smaller than you see on the screen. If that happens left click on the image and choose "save image as" and then you can increase or decrease the size and print from there. You can find more quotes on my Pinterest board.






















It is never to early to learn about the Reader's Bill of Rights.