12 Take-Home Thematic Backpacks

ABOUT THE BOOK

"12 Take-Home Thematic Backpacks"

Twelve grade-appropriate themes - including bears, insects, transportation, and friends - are supported by recipes, articles, patterns, activities and more. Also includes descriptions and benefits of the backpack program, and how to get strated. (144 pp.)

This book is designed to help you promote this kind of parent -- involvement by offering parents and their children opportunities to read together and to share fun book-based activities in an easy-to-use format.

Book backpacks are just what they sound like -- backpacks (or bags, or lunch boxes, or whatever you can find to pack the materials in) that hold a selection of related books and activities. From Penguins to Our Planet Earth, this book develops 12 inviting themes complete with annotated book lists, child-centered activities, and other inviting materials all ready to reproduce and use instantly. Each chapter includes:

a parent newsletter that introduces the backpack theme, suggests several "no special materials needed" activities, provides a thought-provoking question, lists fun facts, presents a poem for sharing, offers subject area-related experiences, and more;

a tag to identify the backpack;

reproducible activity pages for parents and kids to keep;

a cover page with a response starter the backpack's journal;

an annotated booklist to include in the backpack;

That's not all. Because studies also show that parents want to know more about the ways they can help their children learn, we've included several informative reproducible parent pages on key topics such as choosing books for children, making the most of read-alouds, and taking reading on the road (travel tips).

Wondering how you're going to keep track of the backpacks that are coming and going? Your students are bound to love them so much that they'll know exactly which ones they haven't taken home. But to help out, you'll find sign-out forms on pages 140 and 141. Everything you'll need is ready to reproduce and use. All you need are the books. On the pages that follow, you'll find loads of low-cost suggestions for adding to your library of backpack books, as well as tips and strategies for using, managing, maintaining, and updating the backpacks.

Whether you start out by building one backpack or developing a dozen, we hope the materials in this book help you bring your students and their parents together to read and learn -- and promote a love for reading that will enrich children's lives for years to come.

GETTING STARTED

What happens when you combine a winning theme with related books and a few inviting activities? You've got a book backpack that can bring parents and children together for those all-important shared reading and learning experiences. In the chapters that follow, you'll find everything you need (but the books and the bags) to create 12 complete backpacks. Where to begin? Included you'll find tips and strategies for everything from acquiring books to restocking your backpacks.

You might want to get your backpack program going by developing one or two backpacks. Once those backpacks are circulation smoothly, you can work on adding a few more topics. Whatever the number, don't be surprised if you find your kids clamoring for more!

To order a personally signed copy please contact: