sometimes we all just need to have fun!

When I was looking at Professor Castle's blog, I saw the links for the National Book Festival.  I had promoted this event to my students for five years, as my administration had told me to, but I had never attended.  This year, my son's teacher did such a good job exciting him about going, that we went down to D.C. for it.  It was truely an awesome experience for my preschoolers, my 4 year old actually got things out of it and my 2 year old enjoyed being there.

They weren't sitting there actually reading books at the National Book Festival.  They were doing fun activities related to literacy and exciting my children about literacy.  Throwing bean bags at the letters to spell their name, or watching a Clifford story on a T.V. while the words that are being read are being highlighted,writing their name on a birthday card for Clifford, the list goes on with fun activities they participated in.  I think that early childhood classrooms used to be full of fun engaging activities like this, that there is no tangable result except excitment, excitment about reading.  It is important to take time out of pushing through the standards and just excite our children about learning.
 
One of my students' favorite days in First Grade was when we participated in BookIt's "America's Biggest Bedtime Story."  The students watched a podcast at home of a story being read by a celebrity, we also rewatched it at school in the morning.  They then answered online comprehension questions at school.  The students had uniforms so the principal was uncomfortable having them wear pajamas, but students were able to bring their favorite stuffed animal to school.  In the weeks leading up to this event, the students had selected faculty and staff members to invite to read the class their favorite bedtime story, and in groups wrote them an invitation.  We had the "cool P.E. teacher," the principal, the kindergarten teacher and others join us.  We concluded the day by having the student's seventh grade buddies read them their favorite bed time story and share in hot chocolate and cookies.

Did the students actaully learn a tangable skill?  Unlikely.  But they were excited about reading!  Excited to work on developing their own literacy skills.  Sometimes fun activities to engage our students in the bigger picture are invaluable.