We celebrated Family Literacy Night last week. It was a lot of fun! Parents, grandparents, students, little brothers and sisters attended and participated in the activities.
This was our table to welcome families and have them sign in before beginning the fun! We have to turn the signatures in so we want everyone to sign.
When students and their families arrived they stopped by my table to pick up their Scavenger Hunt paper and a pencil. During the scavenger hunt, they read the clues and looked for letters hidden around the school. These letters were then written to finish a Dr. Seuss quote.
UPDATE:
So many people have asked me for a Literacy Night Scavenger Hunt! Thank you all so much for your interest in this!
Once students and families finished with the scavenger hunt, each student and sibling got a pretty pencil and Dr. Seuss bookmark. They also received a green raffle ticket for the book drawing!
We had buckets of books for the pre-k to 1st graders and second and third graders to put their names into for the drawing. The kids really enjoyed stopping by the tables to look through the books they just might win!
We had a table for the older students and even a bucket of books for their parents to have a chance at winning too! I think the parents really appreciated being included in this.
At another table we asked parents to fill out a parent survey letting us know how we were doing and suggestions for how we could help them (parents).
That night the book fair was also open late so parents could come and shop with their families and buy lots of books.
We also have a Pirate Themed Family Literacy Night Scavenger Hunt:
It was a fun night and a great way to get to know the families! What does your school do for Literacy or Math Nights? I would love to hear about it!
Brittany Daleske says
Thank you for your post on what you did for literacy night! My school is planning what to do for our literacy night and I am thankful for your ideas!
Thanks!
Brittany
The Literacy Bug
lorivines4 says
You are welcome, Brittany! Good luck with your school's literacy night! Thanks for coming by!
Tammy says
I know you put in a lot of work to make the night successful. Your students and their families are blessed by you and your dedication.
❀ Tammy
Forever in First
lorivines4 says
Thank you so much for your kind thoughts, Tammy! I appreciate your constant support!
Everyone deServes to Learn says
We are trying to put one together for the end of the year so parents understand about summer reading. Also, because we keep running out of time during the regular school year! These are great ideas!
-Maria
lorivines4 says
I like the idea of having a literacy night at the end of the school year to promote summer reading! That is a great idea!
Jeannine says
Looks like a well planned and very successful family night Lori! I like all of your displays and ideas, especially the scavenger hunt. We do something in the fall where parents and children visit rotations in the classrooms. Teacher and parapro volunteers present an activity in each room. The students and parents play it together and they leave with all of the learning games and a bunch of other goodies. I organize the volunteers at our building, but a grant pays for the kits and other lovely ladies prep it all for us! 🙂
Jeannine
Creative Lesson Cafe
lorivines4 says
Wow, Jeannine! Your literacy night sounds fantastic! I really like your idea of students and families rotating to different stations and taking the activity home with them. Thank you for sharing that!
Andrea Crawford says
Looks so easy and simple! I am working on planning ours for next year, and this looks like a great idea! Thanks so much!
Andrea
Reading Toward the Stars
lorivines4 says
Thanks Andrea! We had a good time that night on Family Literacy Night!
Carla @ Comprehension Connection says
Excellent event, Lori! So glad I dropped by to read your post. 🙂 I'm always looking for new PI activities.
lorivines4 says
Thanks so much, Carla! I appreciate you dropping by!
Carolyn Kisloski says
I love your ideas, Lori! I bet everyone had a fabulous night. I really like the parent survey idea, because you never know- there may be some simple, helpful thing we could do to help parents that we haven't even thought of! Thank you so much for sharing this! We don't have a literacy night- but may next year, so I love these ideas. I also saw an idea on Pinterest about having snack related to books- like muffins out by If You Give a Moose a Muffin, mini hotdogs by Pigeon Finds a Hotdog… I thought that looked cute. 🙂
Carolyn
Kindergarten: Holding Hands and Sticking Together
lorivines4 says
Thanks Carolyn! I like your idea of the snack to go with a book. Those are great ideas!
TeacherChicks says
Great ideas Lori! Thanks for sharing! We have Reading is Fun Night every year. This year was a Solar System theme, so we had 8 stations named after each planet. Kiddos had adorable name tag lanyards that our PTO created and got a star for each planet they visited. Each grade level had some kind of activity or game involving reading or writing that students could do with their parents.
Amy
3 Teacher Chicks
Lee Ann Rasey says
We've had a Title I Family Night for the past 3 years as a Title I targeted assisted school. Now that we are schoolwide this year, we don't know how to manage it with 4 Title I teachers who need to invite the whole school. We also are never given time to plan together as we all have different schedules being part-time. Last year's was not enjoyable as parents sat, ate and talked and let their children run around. Any suggestions?
lorivines4 says
I understand your frustrations, Lee Ann. We only currently have 2 Title 1 teachers, including myself. And this year the other teacher had a family funeral to go to that night. Luckily a teacher volunteered to help me set up and another one sat with me during the night. You might want to have some kind of activity for the family to do. The scavenger hunt worked well and wasn't hard to set up. That is something they can do as a family without any help. Thanks for stopping by!
Barbara says
Sounds like you had a great evening! We don't do a literacy night. Instead we have a literacy week that's more geared to the kids. I rally like the way you do it though. It's always good to get families involved.
lorivines4 says
I like the idea of a literacy week geared to the kids! That sounds like a fun way to do it too. Thanks for sharing that, Barb!
lorivines4 says
Thanks so much, Amy! The idea of rotating to different solar system stations is great! That sounds like a lot of fun. Thank you for sharing that!
Anonymous says
This sounds like a great idea. We have done a Math night, Alice in Wonderland night, and an Eco night which have all been successful. Thanks for your ideas.
Beti
lorivines4 says
5th Grade Happenings, Alice in Wonderland sounds like a great night! That must have been a lot of fun. Thank you for stopping by!
Anonymous says
Was there other activities or just the scavenger hunt?
lorivines4 says
Sandra, we usually have lots of different games or activities on our Title nights. We gear them towards math and literacy. We always have some sort of food- a meal or snack to go with it too. Thank you for stopping by!
JWick says
Thanks so much for sharing these fun ideas! It’s always great to read about other ways to inspire parent involvement & I loved having a book drawing for the parents! I have done the drawings for kids before, but what a great idea to include them! : )
I’m curious about what you asked on your survey. Would you consider sharing that?
Thanks so much!