DONUTS WITH GROWNUPS: Family Literacy night event

The Sweet Coach

 
School wide Family Literacy night
All of the activities and ideas
from planning to execution! 
 

Our school success plan includes parent engagement nights. Of course, a Family Literacy Night made the short list. Our parents are so involved and yearn for resources to support their child at home so we knew a night of fun and easy activities was just what we needed. 

 
GOAL: to deliver literacy activities in all areas of Reading that were fun, kinesthetic, movement focused, and easy!

 

 
                             Theme: Books & Donuts with Grownups! 

 

                            Who wouldn’t come just for the donut alone?!!!!! 
 
Blog post contents overview:
  1. Planning 
  2. Stations
  3. Presentation 

We got 250 donuts donated from a family that owned a donut shop! WOW!

Planning

  1. INVITATION-I made an invitation using Canva! My FAVORITE digital creation website. The images are so so so cute! Get yours here
  2. RSVP-We included an RSVP link and QR using Microsoft Forms so we could plan correctly for:
    • Grade Level of students coming
    • How many total kids
    • Total adults
  3. STATIONS: Posters at each station with directions (click for one free slide)
     
    1. Krispy Kreme Crosswords
    2. Savory Vocabulary
    3. Sprinkles and Sight Words
    4. Frosted Fluency
    5. Delicious Donuts
    6. Craving Crafts
    7. Reading Consultations-our reading specialists conferenced with parents. They looked at our student assessment database for that student’s results and gave suggestions on what to focus on at home (and encouraged a parent teacher conference for more in depth information). 
  4. VOLUNTEERS-we always struggle with enough help due to the massive size of our school (1200 students)
    • Schoolwide teacher/staff volunteers 
    • PTO 
    • Local middle/highschool key club and NEHS clubs who need volunteer hours
  5. DECORATIONS-Shop for these items by clicking here 
    1. Napkins and plates
    2. Table cloths
    3. Student take home prize (donut bracelets, donut water bottle sticker, and donut eraser)
    4. Hanging decorations
    5. Balloon arch in the shape of a donut! 
    7. Table top decorations (donut lanterns)
    8. Volunteers had donut shop paper hats
    9. Donut posters hung all around free from: 

       

 

 
Comprehension Reading in the Media center and patio
  • Local author presentation

 

  • Librarian for library card sign ups

 

  • Reading with parents and fun book buddy (stuffed animal)
  • Book swap (bring books you are done with and trade them out with new to you books)
  • Parent handout-question stems to ask your child after reading at home and donut genre wheel to encourage WIDE reading across many genres.

Fluency

    1. Donut passage reading in 1 minute- had timers set out

                            Donut passage free by Courtney Keimer off of TPT

    1. Giant blow up Dice with a roll and read words page-different for grade level difficulty. 

        1. Multisyllabic Roll and Read for upper grades
        2. R-Controlled vowels for 1st-3rd
        3. CVCe for K-1 grades
    1. Alphabet letter ID and sounds- students flip through these quickly for fluency practice.

    1. Parent handout-fluency passages to use at home (from our curriculum)
 
 

                                             

Phonics and sight words

 

    1. Hopscotch on the patio in levels of difficulty. 

Level 1 was Kindergarten phonics words (CVC and CVCe)

Other levels were sight words based on grade level

 

    1. Read, build, write laminated mats with “Donut Dough” (playdough)!!!!

 

    1. Music chalk walk- we had random circles of chalk on the ground, phonics words written inside each, students hopped to each circle while the music played, when it stopped they read their word. 
    1. Parent handout- dolch word lists by grade level

Vocabulary

    1. Spinners and Frayers- 
      • Draw a vocab flashcard
      • They folded their paper into four squares. 
      • Kids spun the spinners which told them their directions which included: draw, sentence, connection, definition.  
    1. Sprinkling Suffixes-I blew up this template to poster size, wrote a suffix in the middle, and had students generate words with those suffixes onto sprinkles (strips of construction paper) and glued to the donut. 

       

Extra stops-
Worlds largest crossword puzzle: I blew these up to poster size and hung them on the wall. 

  • Photo booth props
  • Donut stop

  • Create a popsicle stick reading pointer

 
  • Crafts- donut coloring pages free from TPT 🙂 
  • Donut name and donut shop hat



 

 

 
 
 
PRESENTATION
 
I made a Canva PowerPoint to open the first 15 minutes giving our parents an overview. Get your editable version here
 
Included:
  • Introductions
  • Our Literacy “why”
  • Assessments
  • 5 areas of reading
  • Ways to support at home tips
  • Homework support
  • Free resources and apps
 
Then we gave an explanation of the night and where the stations were. 
 
Every family was given a donut passport (top pink part only) to collect a donut at each of the main Reading stations (cut the donuts off and individually sorted by color. One color donut given out at each station…ex: the brown donuts were all given out at the vocabulary station). At the end, the student turned it in for some fun goodies! 
Her passport shows her progress through the stations.
She has collected 3 donut stickers and 2 more to go. 
 
Goodies included a donut bookmark from 3rd grade engaged:
 
STAY TUNED FOR MORE,
                 
THE SWEET COACH

 

 
 

 

 
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