Literacy Bags

Ever since I came across the cute little Literacy Bag online that went along with The Kissing Hand, I have had Literacy Bags on the mind. I started brainstorming ways I could incorporate some themed bags into my classroom and ways that I might be able to get parents involved. Since I will have such a short time during each session with my students, I definitely want to encourage reading and other educational and literacy activities at home as well as family involvement in the students' learning. When I searched around on the web for information pertaining to Literacy Bags, there were quite a few teacher's sites that provided information on how they use them and examples of themed bags. Some great theme ideas that I am excited to try out are:

• a birthday bag for students to take home on their birthday which could include some birthday stories (one of my personal favorites...Benny Bakes a Cake that my mom read to me when I was little) and perhaps the counting cakes from Lakeshore in addition to an activity where students can draw/write/dictate about how they celebrate their birthdays.

• a lost tooth bag that students can take home when they lose a tooth which could include some stories about lost teeth, a tooth fairy doll, a tooth pillow, and an activity where students can draw/write/dictate about how/when/where their tooth fell out.

• a frog bag with some books from the Froggy series, a Frog & Toad book, some non-fiction books about frogs, the lily pad frog toss game from Lakeshore to practice matching numbers, and maybe some plastic frogs with an activity to sort or describe them. 

Other theme ideas==>

• dinosaurs
• shapes
• ABC's
• transportation
• families
• colors
• all about me
• five senses
• earth and environment
• bugs
• holiday/seasonal

great for bugs bag!

I was thinking about how spendy this process could be so I decided to look into creating another project proposal from Donors Choose. I took a look at Lakeshore since that is one of my favorite teacher resources and  I discovered that they offer lots of themed learning libraries in many of the themes listed above. I started adding some to my cart and I am in the process of creating the proposal. I will add additional activities that go with each theme and probably purchase some plain canvas bags that can be written or painted on. I definitely want each bag to include several books and also some math and/or literacy activities/games. I also want to provide a writing/drawing/dictation activity where students can add their ideas to some sort of collective work that gets added to each time a child takes home the bag. Instructions and a list of materials would need to be included as well.

I would love to get parents involved in this process and I came up with a few ideas. I could gather some supplies and have parents come after school and help me decorate the bags and put them together. I could also share the Literacy Bag idea in a letter to parents and put it out there that if they are interested in a donating one to the class so they could pick a theme and purchase a few books and/or related activities. I would not at all want to put pressure on parents to pay for something like this, yet I do think there might be parents who would love to help the classroom in that way.  I was also thinking that it would be a great way for families to have an outlet for sharing what makes their family unique. If they come from a different culture or country, maybe they would be interested in putting together some materials to share that with other kids about that country/culture. Maybe parents could help with theme bags related to their jobs or they could help their child with a theme bag related to particular interest. I don't think this necessarily requires a big cost. We could have  a classroom camera for taking photos of certain activities/jobs or whatever theme they chose and they could even write information instead of including books. If they were to select an interesting theme I could take it from there and include some books and additional educational games or activities.

I know I can't possibly create enough bags for every child to be able to take one home at the same time, but some would be for special occasions and typically several kids don't share the same birthday or lose a tooth on the very same day. The theme bags could be used with a type of lotto system or I could pull popsicle sticks out every Friday to see who gets to take a bag home for the weekend. I came across a great letter that a teacher had written describing the Literacy Bag system and she had the parents choose whether or not they wanted to participate. Then she also explained that they would be responsible for all materials and replacing anything that got lost or damaged. Additionally she made the rule that if a child were to not return the bag by the designated return date on two occasions, they would no longer be able to participate. I saved her letter because I think it would definitely be important to have a specific procedure outlined for parents with clear expectations.

I can picture kids getting really excited to have a turn taking home the Literacy Bags and I am excited to share this idea with my new team and hopefully put it into action this year. It would be awesome if I could get some of the themed learning libraries and games through Donorschoose, but even if I can't, I can try to copy some of the activities they offer in a DIY fashion and I could even use library books and just continuously change what themes would be available for students to take. Also, even though getting the themed libraries from Lakeshore would be awesome, I do think that creating my own collections could be even more fun (more work, yet more fun!).

I think it would definitely take a lot of time to put these bags together, but I really hope I can make it work because I think it would be so much fun for my kiddos! I would hope that as long as I explained it and shared my expectations that the kids would know to take great care of the materials.

Check out these adorable bags that I came across!!

The website that this photo is from would not load and I am sad because I really want to know more about what this teacher did! The bags are super cute!!! This is exactly what I am picturing that I want to do.

I also came across these bags that can be purchased, but I would prefer making them/having parents help contribute to the process.

I'm excited!!!

What activity/idea are you going to try out this year that is making you excited!?

Do you think parents would be interested in being involved in this activity? Either enjoying the bags with their kids or helping to put the bags together?