Read-a-thon

Last week I wrote about our Mathapalooza that our class had.  It was incredible, but I was more excited about this week's Read-a-thon!

I first got this idea from Head Over Heels Teaching.  She held a Read-a-thon after school for 4 hours with her students.  We held ours all day during school.  Ours was also a little different because I broke up the day with some reading related activities.

Here's what we did.

1.  Guest Reader - I had 3 staff members set up to read stories throughout the day.  Unfortunately only one was able to attend.  Our social worker read The Blue Day Book.  Love the book!  My students love him and were captivated by every word.

Update:  Today, my principal called my whole class into his office.  He apologized for not making it for our Read-a-thon.  He then went on to read 2 books to the kids.

2.  Golden Tickets - I found this idea here.  You put the Golden Tickets in some books and wait for a student to turn one in.  

No one found a ticket during our Read-a-thon, but they are there for next year.

3.  Power Hours - We had 2 big reading pushes that we called Power Hours.  We used the idea of a telethon that has their hours where they have a big push for money.  

The first hour my students set a goal to read 75 books.  They read 80 books.  The only sounds you could here were pages being turned and students reading to themselves.  

The second hour we set the goal of reading and acing AR tests (Accelerated Reading).  Students had to read their books very carefully because they can't go back into them during the test.  We met this goal too!  Each time a student got 100%, they got to ring a bell.  The bell was rung quite a bit!

4.  Bookmark Making - The students got to make their own bookmarks.  Pretty simple but fun.

5.  Reading Freeze Tag - My students actually reminded me of this.  Click here to read how to play this game.

6.  Book Worms - We ate some book worms (gummy worms) while reading.  Yuck!  I am not a fun but my kids liked them.

7.  QR Codes - I made a bunch of QR Codes to use as rewards for our power hour,  Click HERE for your free download.

The Read-a-thon was a success!  This was demonstrated to me when one boy had an early dismissal and was so bummed to go home.  He wanted to stay and enjoy the day!  I love that he was so excited about reading!