Book Match Literacy Center!

Happy Saturday, Friends! Kerri here...
I can't believe that one week of Summer Vacay is over already! Let me tell you what I did last week....


a whole bunch of NOTHING! and it was glorious!! Well, I did manage to find time to read, work out, go shopping, sleep in, and make green smoothies for breakfast, but my baskets of clean laundry DID NOT get folded for the entire week-HA! In your face, laundry!! :)

I have a little something to share today that is EASY PEASY LEMON SQUEEZY to make, and my kids ABSOLUTELY love doing (both Kinder and First Grade)! I call it "Book Match", but really what a boring name! I have never been able to think of a more clever name for it, but anyways, all this center requires are emergent readers (with 1-2 sentences per page), sentence strips, and gallon size Ziploc bags!


Okay, all you need to do is write out the story on sentence strips, cut the words apart, and store the words and the book in a large ziploc baggy, labeled with the name of the book on it, of course. During centers, my kidlets work in pairs to put the story back together correctly. I used this center ALL THE TIME in Kinder, and it is perfect for the beginning of First Grade too! 


A helpful tip: write a letter or word in pencil on the back of each word card for each book, so you know which baggy the word card goes into when your students inevitably come up to you 10 minutes later with a word card they have found! (DRAT!!) 


I don't even laminate mine, I have used these for years and they are still in perfect condition!

Another thing I have is varying levels of books for my different levels of students. Some of my books are VERY basic with only 1 sentence per page, and others have 2 longer sentences which makes it MUCH more difficult because there are so many more words to sort and put in order. 


In Kinder, I taught my kids to sort their cards by word, especially if the books are predictable, and this helps them manage all of those words cards. In First Grade, I let them just go for it, and use whatever strategy they want to!

I have used Sunshine books, Phonics and Friends books, and the Phonics Readers from Houghton Mifflin for this center, but really ANY emergent readers that have predictable text would be PERFECT, so get crackin' friends! Your kiddos will LOVE LOVE it, and this costs you NADA! 
YAY!!


P.S. Why are Yoga outfits so flippin' expensive?? I mean really, $79 for a pair of stretchy pants? Ridiculous! I'm gonna try TJ Maxx and see if I have better luck, cause LuLu Lemon is WAY out of my price range! :/