Many primary classrooms love celebrating Read Across America week. Although our class celebrates Literacy each and every day, we like to get extra wild and wacky during Reading Week each year. Here are a few of our favorite activities to celebrate literacy and Read Across America in the primary classroom.

Got Books? 

From Costco to Target. Garage sales to dumpster diving (True story, not proud.)…We’ve got a ridiculous amount of Dr. S books for Read Across America Week! Before we gathered our collection, we gutted the local library shelves and borrowed all the Dr. S books they’d allow. We leave them out and available all week long. 

Students use these books in our literacy centers to rhyme, read and review.

It seems only fitting that we would focus on reading vocabulary words during Read Across America week. We keep 16 reading words in our class pocket chart all week long.We are firm believers in providing rich vocabulary activities for our students consistently throughout the year. One of the best ways kids learn is through play! So, what better way to practice our reading week vocabulary than with a friendly game of Reading Bingo? It’s such a great opportunity for us to review reading concepts and foster vocabulary development through play. We make the kids yell, “READ-O” if they get a Bingo…They love it! 

Reading fluency is at the top of our to do list at this time of year. Out are the robot voices…In are the fluent readers! One of our favorite ways to get students practicing their reading fluency is…By reading! That sounds so easy…It is! We use Fluency Building Bookmarks weekly in our classroom, so creating a special bookmark for Read Across America week was a no brainer. Our kids eat these up! They roam and read around the room for a set period of time. Each time they listen to a reader, they give a compliment and sign their initials or name on a line. When their bookmark is filled up, we give them a pat on their back and tell them to grab another one…And they do! 

We always teach our kids that great readers also make great writers. Reading week writing activities include creating a class book to add to our Sharing Pages collection. Our class loves these writing prompts and we love letting them practice their writing, reading and public speaking skills as often as we can.

We’ve created everything you need for a successful Reading Week in your classroom! These print and go activities keep us going for one day or one week anytime we want to celebrate reading in our classroom.

One of our absolute favorite Dr. S. stories is Ten Apples Up on Top. Really for only one reason…This Ten Apples Up on Top Sing Along we found on YouTube a few years back. You will be belting it out by Friday…Trust us. 🙂

So of course, we can’t just sing to sing in classrooms anymore, so we created this excuse activity to go along with Ten Apples Up on Top. It was actually Wacky Wednesday at school that day too, hence the mustaches…Call it a Dr. S story fusion activity. 🙂 

Here’s What We Do:

-Cut white construction paper for the tall hat. Cut a bottom white brim too.

-Cut 4 red strips per student to glue to the hat, spacing them apart to make red and white stripes. 

-Draw a self portrait (mustaches optional) of your face and cut it out. 

-Glue face and top hat to one another.

-Cut out 10 apples. 

Some Ideas for the Ten Apples Up on Top:

-Students can write spelling, high frequency, or phonics words on each apple, then glue them in alphabetical order to the hat. 

-Students can write and solve addition, subtraction, multiplication, or division problems on each apple, then glue them in number order by their answers.

-Or, come up with your own creative idea! If you do, be sure to post a photo of your class projects and tag us on Facebook or Instagram (@fluttering1st). We’d love to see your ten apples up on top! 

Most of the pieces are cut and created with construction paper, but here’s our template for the ten apples if you’d like to make it with your class. We copy them on green and yellow and let our students pick. Just click to download below. 

Dr. Seuss dress up days can be so much fun! At home, we go head to toe for our Things…At school we make hats. 🙂 

We just printed this Thing 1 and Thing 2 sign we created on our computer (There are a lot out there if you Google.), cut red construction paper for the headband and turquoise blue strips for the hair.

We teach them how to curl the strips around their pencils and attach them to the Thing 1 or Thing 2 headband.

We’ve collected a few other goodies (Thanks Target!) along the way that we love sharing with our class during Read Across America week. 

How do you celebrate reading with your class?