Literacy Night World Adventures

Literacy Night is a BIG event at our elementary school. Students, families, teachers, and the community come together for night filled with read-alouds, reading and writing activities and games, refreshments, and lots of FREE BOOKS! Every year, our literacy night features a different theme. We absolutely LOVED our theme this year: RES World Readers.

This World Adventures theme incorporated traveling, different states, countries and cultures, and exploration of landmarks across the continents. The nonfiction theme was such a blast, and our students and families walked away with a memorable experience and a lot of new knowledge! (You can check out our Let’s GLOW Read a Book! literacy night theme here.) In this blog post, I’ll share some key components of our buildings literacy night from this year. Perhaps you’ll be able to take some ideas and replicate it for your own building or district, too!

This blog post contains Amazon affiliate links. This just means my blog receives a small compensation if you make a purchase using these links. There is absolutely no extra cost to you. I hope you find the links helpful and convenient.

Literacy Night: The Details

Our literacy night is extra special because we are sponsored and supported by our county’s United Way organization, as well as lots of local community businesses who generously donate funds and goods such as hot dogs, buns, bottled water, chips, and their valuable gift of time! Each year, we set up tents (similar to this tent) in three different classrooms. Fairy lights are strung under the tents to make the classrooms cozy! (Always check safety rules and get approval by your school first.) Each tent sponsors a different community organization, and our incredible community members do read-alouds in the tents throughout the two hour event.

As students arrive at literacy night, they are given a book to put in a drawstring bag. The book is the same for the entire school each year, and it typically goes along with the year’s theme. This year, each child who attended received the first book in Mary Pope Osborne’s Magic Treehouse series: #1 Dinosaurs Before Dark.

Book Shopping at Literacy Night

In addition to receiving the “One School, One Book” title at arrival, students also get to “shop” for 4 brand-new books in our gymnasium. We set up tables filled with tons of books that we purchase from Scholastic Books. These books are purchased with the money we raise from our school’s Scholastic Book Fairs.

Several teachers volunteer in the gym to help each child and family shop for new titles that they’re interested. This is my absolutely favorite aspect of our literacy night. This year, I had a mom reach out to tell me that because of this book shopping experience, her 4th grade son found a new series he was into now: the Wings of Fire series. (As a literacy coach, my favorite job in planning this event is book shopping for all of the books!)

We also have other free goodies for families, such as refreshments (hot dog, chips, bottled water that is provided by local companies) and this year, a popular temporary tattoo table with adorable temporary tattoo globes found on Amazon! This table was a total hit. The kids were so excited, and we got our high school football team to run the table.

family Photobooth fun

A family reading night isn’t complete without a fun photobooth! We have a little photobooth stand that we keep at school for all of our special events. I used this map-themed backdrop from Amazon to set the stage for a cute photo op for families and students! We added travel-themed photo props to this area, too. I wish I could show you some of our families’ adorable pictures and memories that they captured, but just know they were super precious!

Materials needed: photobooth stand, photobooth backdrop, photobooth travel props

k-1 activity room: Suitcase sounds

For each of our family literacy nights, we have three different “activity rooms” that we set up in the school. One is typically geared for our PreK/K-1 students, one for grades 2-3, and another for grades 4-5. However, all students typically love to travel to all of the rooms and participate in the fun!

This year’s K-1 room featured an activity called Suitcase Sounds! We used little cardboard suitcases that were set up around the classroom. Each suitcase had a stack of coordinating recording templates beside it. The students “unpacked” the suitcase by finding the foam letter stickers that matched the initial sounds on the recording sheet. When they were finished matching the letter to the sound, they stuck it on the page. Then, it spelled out a travel-themed word!

The kids loved the suitcase activity, and they loved this Pluffle sensory material we added to the suitcases. There are templates for up to five suitcases in my printable freebie pack. I also included direction sheets that work with letter stamps instead of stickers if you do not want to purchase lots of foam stickers!

Materials Used: Pluffle sensory bin filler, foam letter stickers, cardboard suitcases, Suitcase Sounds templates (end of blog post)

2-3 Activity Room: Postcard Fun

In the second and third grade room, we hung a long line of twine across the classroom. On the reading table, we placed a book from all 50 states across the US. A multitude of postcard templates were scattered across the table. Students chose a book based on somewhere they have been, or a state they want to visit one day. With their families, they created a postcard about the state to hang up on our clothesline. The postcards were displayed for all of our families and students to enjoy throughout the night. There was a ton of knowledge building and learning happening in this classroom throughout the night!

Materials Needed: twine, mini clothespins, books, free postcard templates (end of blog post)

4-5 Activity Room: Around the world riddles

The fourth and fifth grade activity room was my absolute favorite during literacy night! I also loved seeing even our kindergarten students participate in this activity with the help of their families. For this activity, I used recordable sound buttons that I purchased on Amazon. I wrote a riddle about six different landmarks or special places found around the world. Prior the literacy night, each riddle was recorded into the sound button. I used tape to number the buttons 1-6. The buttons were scattered around the room. Students pressed a sound button, listened to the riddle, and matched the sound button with the picture on their recording sheet.

This listening comprehension activity was a BLAST! Even the adults loved trying to solve the riddles around the room. Little ones were able to complete this activity with the help of a grown-up, and everyone learned a TON! In another area of the room, we gathered books about countries from around the globe with the help of our school librarian and public library. Students and families were able to browse books together and learn about different cultures and places around the world. The engagement was exactly what we had hoped for in a family reading night!

Materials needed: six recordable sound buttons, country books, Around the World Riddles template (end of blog post)

free literacy night printables

Would you love to download all three of these literacy night activities, templates, and directions? How about BONUS literacy night posters that were created for our event, too? I even created multiple poster versions so that you could do this themed literacy night around your classroom, even if it’s not completed as part of a school-wide literacy night.

This free printable pack can be downloaded and used as a thank you for signing up for my Miss DeCarbo email list. By signing up for my list, you’ll get exclusive access to various PD events, sales, new resources, exclusive freebies, blog posts, and more! Simply click HERE or on the photo below to fill out the sign-up form for this free thank you gift. The freebie will be directly sent to your email inbox. *Sign up with a PERSONAL email to ensure delivery, as some emails can get stuck in spam and junk boxes.

love themes? try mini reading theme days!

Do you love this literacy theme? Would you love to replicate MORE theme-based literacy days in your classroom? I have FOUR mini reading transformation packs that I know you and your students would love! You can even get all four sets in a discounted bundle: Mini Reading Transformations Bundle. This special bundle includes the following themed resources:

• Book Bakery Genre Day
• Compare and Contrast Construction Day
• Restaurant Retell Day
• Main Idea Movie Day

SHare this post with a colleague

Share this literacy night blog post with a colleague by pinning the image below to Pinterest!