[Smilefor3rd]

Anyone ever serve on a committee to host a Family Literacy Night? Our school is planning one for September and I am searching for ideas to focus on that night. Thanks.

[FrogLady]

Our school had Family Reading Nights that were run by our parent coordinator. She normally just had the children bring pillows and blankets. Teachers would come and read to them and there would be snacks. Unfortunately, not too many teachers came and less students. So, I started bringing some of my literacy centers and the kids loved it! I also worked with another teacher and we performed a reader's theater which the kids also loved. We are planning on doing reader's theater from the very beginning next year to hopefully get more parents involved by coming to see their darling perform. Hope this helps! Good luck!

[RebeccaH]

See the Busy Board there has been a posting on that today. I think there are 4-5 postings.

[Grade4Teach]

We have a family literacy night each year. Teachers sign up to read a book or a portion of a book if it is a chapter book. We then plan a short activity to go along with the book.

The night starts in the gymnasium, we have the students sign in, get their name tags and they can bring books for the book swap. We count their books and give them a ticket to pick up the same number of books at the end of the night. We also tell them what group they are in.

Then, there is a brief presentation by a guest author. After the author, the students go to their breakout sessions with the teachers. That lasts for about 25 minutes and then they go back to the gym for the book swap and the PTA usually has snacks and refreshments in the cafeteria for them. It is a great night.

Good luck!

[Valerie]

To boost attendance at our Family Literacy Night each teacher was asked to make a themed basket as a door prize. One teacher did a movie basket with a movie on DVD, popcorn, and some of the 97 cent boxes of candy snacks from Wal-Mart. Another teacher did a reading basket and had a wide range of new books in a basket. Two teachers went together and made a Family Game Basket with several popular (but inexpensive) games in it. One teacher did a Puzzle basket with several puzzles ranging from 24 piece to 100 piece, to a 3 D puzzle. Families signed in and then at the end we did the drawings for about 15 baskets. You had to be present to win so almost everyone stayed for the last thing. Attendance was boosted because we had the baskets on display during lunch and kids were excited about the prospect of winning.