FAQ - How might I keep track of the books that are read during our reading aloud when I have no more wall space?
by Trish Prentice I love the idea of keeping a list of the books we read as a class for the entire year! Seeing photos of other classrooms unrolling a huge list at the end of the year is inspiring. I want the children in my class to experience this too. The problem is, I don't have any room in my teaching area to post another thing. So here's my solution. I'm going to use a clipboard and paper.
I'll tape regular sized copy paper end to end. Then I'll fold it at the taped lines, back and forth, into a stack. After that, I'll slip it under the top of one of my decorated clipboards. We can add to it all year long by simply taping more paper to the end of the stack. If it gets too thick, we can take off the first stack and begin another. I'll tie a ribbon to a pen and then to the clipboard so recording titles can be instantaneous. After demonstrating a few times, this job can be turned over to the children. To expand the learning, you could turn the number of books read into an addition problem by adding the totals on each page. Or you could practice skip counting books totals each month, semester and finally the grand total for the year. Another idea is to count the final number of sheets and figure out how many each child can take home as a reminder of a year of reading. At the end of the year we'll tape all the stacks together. So instead of unrolling a big list, we'll unfold a big list. I can already envision an "unfolding" party for the end of the year. I wonder how far the list will stretch down the hallway? The best thing is, I've got nine months to plan the celebration!
Gail and Joan here...We are attaching Lori's record sheet. Lori didn't have room for a wall chart either, so these sheets stayed on a clipboard in the gathering spot for easy access every time they shared a book together. Lori liked 10 rows per sheet so they could periodically count how many books they'd shared and practice counting by 10's at the same time. Our Read-Alouds
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