Slice 7: Family Literacy Night

Finally home from work!  High school teachers in my district start at 7 am.  I pulled a 15 hour day at school and in less than 12 hours I will be right there again alongside those teachers who pulled a 15 hour day with me. Given the length of the commute, some may not be home yet as I am writing this.  Teacher over-time or community service for a good cause, family literacy night.  Family literacy night is just one of the several events that we do at our school to continue to foster the love of reading in teens.

Each year we create a life-sized version of a game inspired by one of our Florida Teens Read books. This year Rot & Ruin  provided the catalyst to create a zombie game modeled after a version of Candyland/  Two of my colleagues, a fellow slicer, Krystin Beavers, and Helen Philpot and their students worked hard to draw scenes from the novel as well as costume themselves appropriately.  It was a hit.

We also offered book spine poetry as well as our kid "craft" ala Cat in the Hat foldable where student collected figurative language from Dr. Seuss's books. I am always amazed because students of all ages seem to gravitate toward the activity that we design for younger children.  We also offered an parent training in Spanish for a pilot program at our school as well as a book trivia game using Socrative, one of my favorite tech tools for the classroom.

Our grand finale was the Poetry Club performance who are coached by another colleague/fellow slicer, Lee Ann Spillane.  Check the phenomenal poets out on their YouTube channel.  Although our campus has 3200 students, our family literacy night was intimate, a synonym for small about 100 teachers, parents, and students.  No matter the 15 hour day, no matter the size, we had a great time!