Still waiting for these bad boys to go on sale...or maybe find a coupon to use on them but no luck so far. I know Target is selling them at the dollar spot for $2.50 but I've only found 4 red ones and I'm afraid I'll scrounge around all Summer only to have 14 by the beginning of the school year. And these have wing stabilizers attached to the bottom that you can slide out!
Last year I made my own by using a certain type of mailing box (that will remain nameless) that I cut diagonally in half. It seemed like a good enough plan since that certain type of mailing box was really thick and sturdy. I took the time to cut it and painted each one and naively thought that I could use it for at least 2 years. Yeeah...they barely made it to the end of the year so I decided to just invest in real plastic ones this time around.
So Read to Self sounds pretty self-explanatory. The students learn beforehand that there are 3 ways to read a book: Read the words, read the pictures, retell the story. I made a poster with simple illustrations next to it last year but LOVE this idea from Beg, Borrow, Steal:
I'd still put simple illustrations next to each one but I love this visual!
I let the students "shop for books" every Monday morning. I would have the students come in first thing and get started on their Morning Work. While they were working I'd call on a group of students at a time to put their books up, which was a very quick task for them to do since all the books were labeled (blogged about that here). When all the books had been put back, I called on groups of students to go shopping for books by getting 3 books from the Classroom library and 3 books from my special stack of books. These are the books that are simple and uses a lot of sight words they have learned. The students also put books in their book boxes from our Guided Reading time so they have a book in there to practice fluency. Those books are in their own special bag and gets traded out when they meet with me during the week.
Next step - I need to find cheap lights that I can have around the room to make it cozier and easier to read!
I got so lucky at Target! They had an awesome selection of the plastic book boxes in all different colors! All I needed was 3 extra purple ones, and I found them at another Target. They're all super dusty, though, so I'm thinking maybe they were leftover from last year's "back to school" Dollar Spot bins? I hope they last forever because $2.50 x 25 students adds up!
ReplyDeleteI found some on Amazon. I have ordered a lot of school stuff off Amazon. You can find some good deals!!!
ReplyDeleteReallyGoodStuff has them but they are fairly pricey. I think it ended up being $90 for 30 boxes. I'm not sure they could be broken if any if my kindergartners tried, though!
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