A teacher and two parents who volunteer in the classroom were having
lunch one day. They began to talk about ways to support reading in the home. One
idea was for "take-home" reading activities. Each activity would be sent home
in a tote bag. The bags would each contain a book and instructions and materials
for parent-child activities related to the book. The tote bags would go home with
each child on Mondays and come back on Thursdays. Staff and parent volunteers
would then have Fridays to repack the bags for the next week. There would be enough
tote bags so that every child could bring home a different one for twenty weeks.
The group felt that this project could cost a lot and take a lot of time. They
felt that more people needed to be involved in planning, to develop the idea and
to make sure it was accepted. They decided to think of all the questions that
the planning team would need to answer. After brainstorming, they came up with
these questions:
- How will we select books?
- How will we select and create activities?
- Do parents want tote bags to come home during the week or over the weekend?
- Who will volunteer to make the tote bags?
- What is the best way to have the activity sheets copied?
- Should the program start small with fewer tote bags that children get to
keep at home longer? Or should it start only after there are enough tote bags
to send a new one home every week?
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