Summer Reading Opportunities

My last post was all about preventing the summer slide by encouraging reading throughout the summer. The kids were a little upset with me when I suggested that they need to keep reading every day this summer, but I assured them that this reading is strictly for fun. Anything goes!

Here are some ideas for encouraging summer reading:

• Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge - Read 20 minutes a day, even in the summer! Join our school as we take on the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge. Scholastic is challenging students all over the world to continue reading throughout the summer. Log in and log your reading minutes each day, and check out our school’s progress on the map. There will be prizes.
• Book Adventure - Show what you know by taking a quiz over the books you read. Just like AR,  Book Adventure awards points for reading books. Parents can create special awards for point levels. 
• ebooks - Don’t forget about our library’s ebook collection. The library is closed for the summer, but the ebooks are still available. Use your school username and lunch number to login and download books.
• Epic Books - Like Netflix for books. Sign up for an account with the first month free. Read unlimited books each month. 
• 10 Weeks of Summer Reading Adventures - lists of activities to do with books all summer long 
• Character Trading Cards - Make a trading card for characters in the books you read 
• Newsela - news articles, reading levels can be adjusted, Spanish translation, quizzes after reading 
• Storyline Online - watch videos of celebrities reading favorite books 
• Tales2Go - ebooks for your mobile device. Try it for free on your tablet, laptop, or PC 
• Pizza Hut BookIt! Read and Do Activities - lists of books and activities to do with each of them in areas such as art, birds, camping, dragons, etc. 

And don't forget to visit the public library to get your own library card. While you're there check out some cool summer programs.

Special Guest Performances by:

• Reah Easley (Old Timer Raccoon), 
• Kornpop the Clown, 
• Nancy Worcester the ventriloquist, and 
• a magic show
• June 7th, 14th, 21st, and 27th at 10:30 am

Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge

Summer Slide - the loss of academic skills over summer break

Students can lose up to 3 months of learning during the summer if they don't continue to practice the skills they learned in school. Studies show that 20-30 minutes of reading each day will help students retain their reading skills from the previous year.

Teachers and parents, we can prevent summer slide. This summer our school is participating in the Scholastic Summer Reading Challenge, a free online reading program that invites children to log their reading minutes all summer.

http://www.scholastic.com/summer

The goal is for the students in our school to read the most minutes possible in an effort to win “Best in State” recognition and a mention in the Scholastic Book of World Records. With your help, we can do it. Students are challenged to read 20 minutes a day and log their minutes on the Scholastic website. The challenge runs May 9th-September 9th. Ask your teacher for a username and password if you are interested in participating. Try not to lose your username and password. You will need it all summer. 

I will be checking the site periodically to see how our summer reading stacks up against other schools in the nation. I will share the results throughout the summer on this blog, on Facebook, and Instagram. 

Stay tuned for more summer reading suggestions.

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App Smashing with Weather

Weather Underground or WeatherBug are great tools for teaching your students to look at the current weather conditions and the forecast for the next few days. Take the learning one step further by having the kids screenshot the weather forecast and drop it into another app to show what they have learned. Here are a few ideas for you.

Annotate

Popplet - make a concept map showing all of the data that can be collected from the weather app.

PicCollage - drop a screenshot or two into PicCollage and add text to show what you know.

Doodle Buddy - Insert a screenshot as a background and draw and type over the image

Track Changes

Timeline - Capture screenshots of the weather over a period of time and add them to a timeline.

Voice Over

Screen Chomp - Add a screenshot, click record, and record your voice and your drawings to show your learning

Tellagami - Add a screenshot as a background and record your voice to make the gami give a weather report

PixnTell - Add a series of images, record your voice as you swipe through images to create a video.