DIY Writing Center

Today is the first of many more Literacy Launchpad videos to come. I will soon be fully launching the Literacy Launchpad Youtube Channel. My Video Producer husband is holding my hand through learning how to put these videos together mostly/partially myself.  I'm so excited to have the opportunity to make what I do each week at Literacy Launchpad accessible to so many more people! Let me know how I'm doing, share this week's video, and be sure to subscribe to Literacy Launchpad on Youtube so you don't miss any coming videos!




Reading and writing go hand in hand. So don't forget to create writing opportunities for your kids and students just like you create abundant reading opportunities for them!

Supplies for your writing center can be found at dollar stores, office supply stores, craft stores, thrift stores (one of our favorite places), and even yard sales! It doesn't have to cost a ton of money, and actually, it's better if it doesn't because then you won't feel frustrated if something from your writing center gets lost or broken (happens frequently at our house).

Writing centers can be stationary, and remain at one table or desk where your students can come and go. Or you could have a portable writing center, contained in a box or basket, and it could move from place to place around your home or classroom. You could even bring the writing center in the car!

Some ideas of items to include in your writing center:
- envelopes
- writing pads
- clip boards (this is especially handy if your writing center is portable center that moves from spot to spot)
-pencil sharpeners
- pencils
- erasers
- cards
- highlighters
- fun stationary
- printed materials grocery store ads, books, magazines, letters you have received in the mail... anything that could be used for inspiration
- dry erase writing cards, or boards
- chalkboards
- tape
- stapler
- calendar/planner
- paper clips
- folders
- notebooks
- sticky pads
- old phones or computer keyboards for playing office
- fun pens
- pencil holders and cubbies for organizing
- stickers
- rubber stamps

A few ideas for themes in your writing center:
- Teacher/Classroom (chalkboard, lesson planning books, workbooks... )
- Office (old phone, calendar, computer keyboard, general office supplies... )
- Grocery List-Making (grocery ads, coupons, notepads, calculators...)
- Hotel Manager (I loved to play this as a kid. We would use an old phone and a journal calendar and pretend to book reservations for guests.)
- Restaurant (small pads of papers, menus, toy cash register... )
- Author/Illustrator's workshop (blank books, writing tools, art tools, photos of favorite authors and illustrators working...)


Books mentioned in the video that could be used as writing prompts:

       

Do what works for you and your family or your classroom. Get as fancy or as simple as you want. And perhaps let your kids' interests guide the direction you take with your writing center.

Do you have a writing center in your home or classroom? What kinds of things do you keep in it for your kids to use?

Taming the Library Book Chaos

In the past few months, I have both misplaced a library and almost had to pay to replace it; and had the library re-check out one of my returned library books before crediting the return to my account (almost had to pay for a library book again). And then of course, there's the always the overdue fines... What to do about this irritating problem? Obviously, we're not going to stop checking out books from the library. We're not even going to check out fewer books from the library. So, I've been racking my brain to try to come up with a good system for keeping up with our family's library books. Here are the basic guidelines typically offered for keeping up with your library books:

1. Keep them in one place.

I've heard it suggested many, many times that you should have a specific place you keep your library books at home. This doesn't work well for us. We check out too many books, and we like to be free to read them wherever we want. What might work for us is to instead have some rules about where our library books don't go; like in the car, outside, over to friends' houses. Even these limitations disappoint me some, because we do rely on our library for so much of our reading...

There's also this cute idea for a place to keep your library books!

2. Have a list of what you have checked out.

This idea is easy in theory because just about every library will print you a receipt with the list of books you have checked out. They will also usually keep a list of what's checked out on your online library account. The online list is much more helpful than the paper receipts that get lost and are hard to keep up with. Plus, if you make multiple library trips, your online account will still have everything checked out, on each visit, listed in one place. My family's challenge is that we have three library cards we use and so I have to make sure I check the online record for each card, or I will miss something! Our library sends email reminders when things are coming due, and that helps a lot. I recommend opting in for that if you can at your library.

There is also an online service called Library Elf that looks like it could be helpful with keeping track of library books!

3. Visit the library regularly.

It's a great idea to have a specific day you visit each week. That way, stuff gets returned regularly, and on time. The idea is to check out only what you think you will be able to read in a week, or two weeks (however often you are visiting), and then bring it all back on your next visit. Our family's challenge is that we have two local libraries we visit. We have more than once returned the wrong books to the wrong library, even when we were trying to check and be careful. So on top of trying to keep all the usual library book stuff straight, we are trying to keep it straight for two different libraries! It's a wonder we haven't had to pay more fines than we have! My other problem is that I have no restraint when it comes to checking out books. I will always check out more books than I can read in a week or two. Always. There's no hope for me.

Considering all the challenges our family has when it comes to keeping up with library books, I guess I should be happy with our success rate.

I've decided that what I need to do is check my online account regularly, and print a list off when I return things that I can check things off on. I need to know for my own sanity which items got put in the drop box and which didn't. Beyond that, the best I can do is simply try to be careful.

How do you keep track of your library books? Help me!

Catch Them Learning!

Have you caught your kids learning lately? Isn't it the best when they don't even realize it's happening? In our house, literacy learning is pretty laid back. I try to provide opportunity, encouragement, and example and then let my kids pick it up from there.

We bring books and learning toys along in the car sometimes. Like our Word Whammer and Fridge Phonics!

We find fun ideas online like doing a library scavenger hunt. The kids really loved this, and did awesome with it. I was really impressed to see my shy, eleven year old do this pretty much all on her own, even asking the librarians for help (without me having to go with her) when she needed it! It helped us all learn some things about our library that we didn't know! And we stopped for some cold drinks on the way home as a reward for all our hard scavenging.

We have a variety of books and things around the house that the kids can pick up at any time and play with. This one is a book that has magnetic pages and letter magnets to spell words with.

We do bedtime stories every night. With all our kids. Mommy and Daddy take turns doing the reading.

My boys have been digging books like the Franny K Stein series and the Lunch Lady series at bedtime. My older one is still learning to read (ELL), but he often takes a flash light to bed so he can glance further ahead in our stories. The graphic novels are especially good for this. He also really loves his Action Bible.

We remember things from books like, "Hey, this is a waterspout, just like the one the Itsy Bitsy Spider crawled up!"

Sometimes we can't wait till we get home to dig into our library finds!

We do word finds on the back of our animal cracker boxes.

We re-read our favorite books over and over and over again. (Even when Christmas has long since passed.) Isaac especially likes this book because he can "read" it all by himself. Another one he likes to "read" himself is One Boy.

Isaac likes to do his "reading homework" with his Leapfrog Tag pen. I've been trying to get my big kids on board with it too (because it would be great practice for them too as they learn to read), but they don't enjoy it as much.

Storybook apps are always a hit. The Monster At the End of This Book is probably the current favorite.

We read books at the kitchen table a lot... Even though it's a dangerous thing to do with a library book.

Sometimes my kids get a bedtime story read to them, and sometimes they wait till the end of the day to practice their reading and so they have to do the bedtime reading. Having the cat snuggle up and listen too always makes it extra fun!

We go to special reading events like celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday at the library!

Sometimes I find surprises by the bookshelves... like my kids and their friends curled up with books. This truly did happen. The girls were searching my shelves for AR books for school, and my son joined them.

I also catch my kids in spontaneous acts of writing sometimes. On this particular day (earlier this week) my son felt compelled to sit down and write a card to Santa about his "bad" cat.

So there's our randomness. Hope it can maybe help inspire some literacy randomness at your house too!

What are some literacy activities you catch your kids doing?

My Home/School

My home is beginning to feel like a little school house. I've been prepping for our newest two additions to our family (via Ethiopian adoption) and for the unique challenges that older child adoption will bring (remember too that our children do not currently speak English). Some of these preparations are things I've been wanting to do anyway, for Isaac's benefit, but haven't been motivated enough.

I am convinced we will never truly be prepared, but it doesn't hurt to try. Check out a few of the things I've been getting ready:

Photo labeling toy bins for easy clean-up.

A sorted craft cabinet. So exciting!

The bookshelf in our breakfast nook. Stocked with play dough, coloring books, paints, pads of paper, pens, crayons, markers, books, CDs, puzzles...

A visual timer to help make transitions a little easier.

A velcro chart for our daily schedule. These cards will also help with communication at the beginning. They have simple pictures of everyday tasks, places, and such.

A calendar. Figure we won't be using it till the kids come home.

Art displays ready to be filled.

Yes, I'm trying to label everything in the house. Hoping it will help all three of my kids learn to read English. The labeling process is slow going, but I'm getting there. I've got enough stuff labeled now that I think David's starting to get annoyed with it. :)

I'm curious if anyone else has done this kind of labeling around their house for their kids at any point? If so, did you attribute any reading successes with it?

Gutter Bookshelves

Gutter bookshelves have been on my household wish list for quite a while now. I finally got my husband to help me make some a week or so ago. We decided to put some up in our bonus room, and also next to our older kids' beds. They turned out really cute, and now I can't wait to put up more of them! They're easy and economical; I think we paid less than $10 for a 10 ft. pice of gutter that we cut to make four individual shelves out of (two 3 ft. shelves, and two 2 ft. shelves).

These shelves kind of turned this little area into a reading nook. I love that! Now I have ideas for enhancing this nook's coziness. :)

Rerun: A Literacy Launchpad Nursery

As I prepare to welcome two new children into our family, and into our home, I am trying to brainstorm something cute, simple, and gender neutral for our new son and daugher's room...

I'm praying for clever inspiration like I had for my son Isaac's room. Take a look. Here's a rerun of a previous post I shared, that briefly explains how I decorated his room:

I always knew that when I had a baby, I wanted to have some kind of a reading theme in the nursery. I also knew that I didn't want to spend much money. So here's a little glimpse of what the hubby and I created for our little guy.


I really like this mobile. It was part of a whole bedding set, but I only needed the mobile, and it sure does look nice with the rest of the room (IMO). It's an elephant with the word "BABY" dangling from the legs (one letter from each leg). Our crib and changing table were purchased from a friend for a steal!


The letter blocks came from a garage sale, and are attached to a super-cheap curtain rod from Lowe's.


Isaac's Gramma made him this quilt. She let me choose the fabrics and theme, so of course, I love the way it turned out. She used a really cute story book fabric to back the quilt. Wish I had taken a photo of that also. Gramma also made the bumper, bed skirt, and window valance.


These are framed prints from a Children's Literature calendar I had. I think it was titled Celebrating Children's Books, or something like that. I don't think they make these calendars anymore. I wonder why. I loved them! I actually had these calendars from a few years, so I had quite a few prints to choose from. I figure I can rotate the pictures if I want, but I'm pretty happy with the ones I chose. The frames came from Michael's. they were on sale for $5 a piece.

Miracles Happen

We got the most snow I have ever seen here in TN since I moved here 6.5 yrs. ago - a whopping 4 (maybe) inches! We don't have the infrastructure here to clear the roads and such. So everybody's been cooped up at home, schools have been closed... it's been kind of fun.

I'm originally from Chicago, so I know snow. I don't miss living in it one bit. But it is fun every now and then. Especially when it shuts everything down! Yay!

My Messy Office

My need to clean is something I am working to overcome. It's necessary that I overcome this, because frankly, I DON'T HAVE TIME TO CLEAN! It's the one thing on my to-do list that matters the least, but it's the one thing I probably end up devoting the most time to. WHY?? Because for me mess = stress. I get paralyzed in a mess and can't function till it's cleaned.

Check out my office and see why I haven't been feeling very motivated to be productive lately. Please note, I use the term "office" very loosely. It's more like a storage space. My office is wherever Isaac is. Or it's the couch if Isaac is in bed.

Yup, that's right folks, reading, planning, writing, cutting, gluing, preparing... None of it happens in this space. Looks are very deceiving.

Having this beauty in my office doesn't help matters any.

I need more bookshelves. I have stacks on the floors, and boxes of books in our storage closet just crying out for a home!

Containers and supplies used for painting projects. Where do I even put these? Add storage cabinet to that wish list of mine!

Need a new system for sorting and storing materials for each lesson...

Love this bag for toting my stuff in each week. It's like my very own Mary Poppins bag. Everything just always seems to fit. I can't always lift it... but it all fits!

Don't you love my collection of dried-up pens and unsharpened pencils?

I love my office... when it's clean. I wish I was able to spend more time working in it. Someday. Till then, it will continue to un-effectively store all my supplies, books, and garbage.

Coming Thursday: Book Nook sharing! And this time there's a GIVEAWAY involved. So snap some photos of your space and get ready to post them later this week to be entered to win a prize!