Family Literacy Night - Genre Travelers

General Overview:

Genre Passports: Set up stations containing several different genres of literature, such as nonfiction, humor, realistic fiction, mystery, sports, fantasy, adventure, and historical fiction. Give each family or student a “passport” which can be stamped after visiting each station. Overall prizes can be given when the passport is full. Door prizes will also occur frequently for attending.

Procedures/Steps:

Step 1 - Speak with district and admin officials to finalize a date/time for the after school activity to take place. Reserve the following required people to be present: school district police/safety officer, custodian, and admin.

Step 2 - Begin drafting and sending out emails to businesses and posting on the school's Facebook page asking for involvement of donations for prizes. Also add in that business that donate cash or prizes can also send over their own business promotional items that we can have set up on a table for the adults to grab such as pens with logos on it, notepads with logos, etc. Order more genre labels from Demco.

Step 3 - Work on Canva and create an informational flyer to be posted online through the school's social media pages, the library social media pages, and sent home with students advertising the date and location of the event.

Step 4 - Begin asking teachers, staff, and community members that would like to volunteer their time to help with the family literacy night. One major goal is to have eight prominent adult figures such as the mayor, a police officer, a teacher, a principal, coach, etc. to be able to place at each station/table that will be sorted by genre. For example, have the coach who is a well-known figure in the community run the "Sports" genre section to help advertise and show off the books available for that particular genre.

Step 5 - Begin working on creating the “passport” books on Canva for students to carry and get a stamp/sticker at each genre table. This will need to have a cover (front/back), then have at least 4 pages inside for the genre tables, and a fun stamp/picture ending. Work on this over a week time period to get it set up correctly where one page will be folded in half creating the passport book.

Step 6 - Brief and meet with the eight table volunteers to explain their role that they will be over a particular genre and will read out a first chapter from one of the books on display at their tables to their groups that come. Upon completion of the first chapter, they will stamp (sticker) the passport book showing the student/family participated in their genre table. Also allow families/students to browse other books from the table. Encourage them to read the synopsis on the back. Encourage them to browse the section near the table that represents the genre (all books have the genre stamp on the spine and are sorted in the library by genres).

Step 7 - Begin pulling books related to each of the following genres: nonfiction, humor fiction, realistic fiction, mystery, sports, fantasy, adventure, and historical fiction. Skim books and focus on ones that have a high interest level for 5th and 6th grade, as well as less than 10 pages in the first chapter due to time of reading aloud.

Step 8 - Recruit additional volunteers (PTO members, parents, other staff) to help with tables, walk around to visit with families, and clean-up.

Step 9 - Finish working on passport books to send to the color printer. Confirm that genre labels to be used as stickers/stamps have arrived from Demco.

Step 10 - Purchase red raffle tickets to hand out to families and students as they enter the library for the door prizes that will be announced every 15 minutes. Also purchase different color raffle tickets for students/families that complete the traveling to each genre in their passport book. This allows the students to be able to keep their passport book for their own while their name can still go in the drawing.

Step 11 - Check in with local businesses that donated money or prizes and begin collecting. If needed, pull from the student incentive budget to purchase small gift cards/prizes. Also, can use money and books from the recent Scholastic book fair as prizes.

Step 12 - Place order for cookies and punch from the local bakery for the literacy night.

Step 13 - Have library helpers (students and paraprofessionals) help in folding and creating the copied passport books.

Step 14 - Set out the selected books on tables that are decorated for each genre near that particular genre section in the library. Add pencils to each table for students to write the genre and notes if they want. Put stickers/stamps of each particular genre at the corresponding table.

Step 15 - Set up the entrance table with the passport books, door prizes, and door prize raffle tickets.

Step 16 - After activity night is over, send out thank you cards to the businesses that donated, admin that participated, staff (police officer, custodian, teachers) that helped. Post on school social media pictures from the event and thank the community for helping spread the love of literacy.