Blasting Off A Great Year

Do you ever have those moments when an idea just appears?  You are not even sure where it comes from, but it is there.  This summer...it happened.  And I just could not get that idea out of my head.  It just kept pushing its way forward until I finally did something about it!
After much creating, printing, cutting, laminating, and mounting, my idea is ready to "blast off" and help our firsties have a great year!

So what was this fantastic, ground breaking idea?  Face-Off--Book Style.

I wanted more interaction between my students and the bulletin boards we spend so much time on (or in my case, a hallway wall).  So I decided that I would post two books.  Both books would be read-aloud books that all students had heard the previous week.  For example: maybe during the first week of school I read "The Crayon Box That Talked" and "Falling for Rapunzel."

   Then students vote on the book that they would recommend to others.  Voting materials could include die cuts or stickers (for a pictograph) or rectangles (for a bar graph).  They would place their vote right there on the board (or my wall). Once the data is collected, oral questions about the graph could be asked.  I have some of our questions posted right on the wall for students to ponder.

As the year progresses, our questions will change.  One week the questions may be more math related and another week they may be more reading related.
Once I started coming up with more oral questions, I decided that I may need some response sheets.  So now I have sheets for graphing, comparing/contrasting author's purpose, comparing/contrasting plot, and opinion writing.

And I am so excited.  REALLY excited.

It is something new that will be easy for me to change out each week (just the books).  I can make it a quick voting activity during transitions with oral questions.  Or I can decide to go more in-depth with responding through written work.  It can take a couple of minutes a week or a couple of hours.  It is up to me.

I like the flexibility of it.

Here is a free download for you.  It is the "Face-Off" banner.  If you want all the question cards and response sheets, just click any of the images above.

I am so happy that I got to share this idea with you!  I hope it helps you to "blast off" to a good year with your students! 

Head on over to Literacy Spark for your next literacy stop!