Book Boxes

Do you know what my favorite time of the day is in my classroom, aside from reading books to the children, ….. when the kids get to read from their book boxes. The “boxes” house books the kids can read the words or pictures and books that they can practice retelling. They let the kids have books that they’ve chosen, their friends or teachers have recommended and books they have successfully read with an adult.

What's Inside Each Box

• Books - teacher selected and ones they’ve chosen on their own

• Decodables that students have read with a teacher

• Fluency folder - a folder filled with poems that the student has read in small group or whole group with the teacher

• Personal Goals Folder - a folder that has the student’s goals that they are working on and the goals they’ve accomplished on the other side

• Reading Notebook - a notebook where students record books they’ve loved, recommendations for/from peers, graphic organizers they’ve learned in class, information they want to remember, etc.

https://video.wixstatic.com/video/a9bec4_d4a026a073ad4d208d3b1aee6df5a646/720p/mp4/file.mp4

Starting the Year Off

At the beginning of the year I put a variety of books in each kid's book box. Some favorites I include are a Piggie and Elephant book by Mo Willems and a Fly Guy book by Tedd Arnold. I also throw in a dog or cat book and sprinkle some non-fiction books at various levels. Eventually we add all the other pieces and kids eventually learn how to go "book shopping" in our classroom library so they can select their own books.

Favorite Part of the Day

I firmly believe that by kids having time each day to read from their book boxes is so important. It allows them time to fall in love with books and practice rereading some poems and books we have read together. It also allows time for me to conference with each reader individually and set individualized goals. (There will be a post coming soon about what reading conferencing looks like in my classroom.)

Plain and simple the book boxes hold power. The power for the kids to be successful and to grow to love books and be better readers.