March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies

I’m here to share some fun and easy ways to celebrate March is Reading Month in your classroom!

March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies- Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

As if you didn’t know! ;)  Reading month is kind of a big deal in my classroom. While we’re busy creating a LOVE for reading all year long, March is when we KICK IT UP A NOTCH! So, with that being said I wanted to share with you a few things that I am doing in my own classroom this month!

Decorate Lockers With Covers of Your Favorite Books:

A fun and easy way to kick-start the month is by having students decorate their lockers with their favorite book covers. First, have students choose their favorite book. Then, give each student a piece of card stock paper. Next, give them time to sketch and color their covers.

They may need to use your classroom library or the school library to get a copy of the book in order to sketch it. Once students finish their covers, hole punch the top. Then, tie a piece of string through the hole and the slit of their locker.

If your students don’t have lockers, just tack or tape the card stock to the wall. Last, enjoy the displays! Visitors and other students love walking the halls to check out our display of favorite books.

Decorate lockers with favorite books by drawing book cover for March is Reading Month - Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Decorate lockers with favorite books by drawing book cover for March is Reading Month - Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Decorate lockers with favorite books by drawing book cover for March is Reading Month - Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Didn’t these turn out awesome?!

Accelerated Reader Point Competition:

While “competition” usually doesn’t come to mind when curling up with a good book, let’s face it, our kids LOVE a good, friendly competition.

Students set a personal goal for books throughout the month and take AR quizzes on their books. The only guideline I set is that the book must be at the student’s reading level. I encourage them to read both picture books and chapter books. I also make sure to monitor students so that they are reading the books for the right reasons versus quickly getting through them for points. Each year I do this, they are 100% honest.

Side note: I know many of you amazing teachers out there have a love/hate relationship with AR, but since many schools are required to use it, you might as well make it fun!

March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies- Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Book Swap:
I do this every year, and my kids act like it’s Christmas! Nothing like out with the old and in with the new!

March is Reading Month FREE Book Swap or Book Exchange printable! - Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Students bring in books from home that they have finished reading or don’t want anymore. Each student may bring up to three books. If they bring three books, they get to swap for three new ones. If they bring two books, they get to swap for two new ones. My students absolutely love going home with “brand new books!”

Click HERE to grab this FREE Book Swap note!

March is Reading Month Book Swap FREEBIE!

Whole Class Drop Everything and Read:

One day, towards the end of the month, we take the afternoon to drop everything and read. I let my students wear pajamas and bring in one comfy thing from home (blanket, stuffed animal, pillow, etc.). Students bring both picture books and chapter books, I provide a healthy snack and we get to just sit and read! It’s the best!

March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies- Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies- Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

March is Reading Month Ideas and Freebies- Young Teacher Love by Kristine Nannini

Poem In Your Pocket Day:

The real “Poem in Your Pocket Day” isn’t until April 18th.  But since I absolutely love this idea, we are celebrating it twice this year! For those of you that haven’t heard of this, the idea is simple.  Students select a favorite poem, they put it in their pocket, they then share their poem with friends, other teachers and whomever else on this special day. A fabulous teacher I work with even used chalk last year to decorate the entire playground with her student’s pocket poems! :)

I would love to know what you do with your students in your classrooms for March is Reading Month!

13 Comments

  1. Yay for Michigan teachers!! I think your 1st and 2nd graders would LOVE this! I know my kids love any excuse to do art! :) Thanks for your comments!

  2. We just began reading “On My Honor” in my classroom on Monday. So far the kids LOVE it! There are various scenes that are perfect for acting out or creating comic strips using visualization. We’ve analyzed the two main characters so far, describing their character traits and will be adding those to our lap books tomorrow. We’ll be putting their traits into the character’s “pockets.”

    Love to hear what other teachers are doing! I’m already thinking of how we can incorporate the book covers into a bulletin board/writing activity. Thanks for sharing! :)

    Mandy
    http://www.the4thgradejourney.blogspot.com

  3. Oh my goodness Mandy, your ideas sound WONDERFUL! I have a group of students that are really struggling with visualizations this year. I’ll have to check this book out! Thanks for the great idea!

  4. Love all of these ideas! My school does not have AR (or anything similar) any suggestions for how to hold the reading contest with out AR?
    You are a super star teacher!

  5. @Megan- Thank you so much for your kind comments! :) There are tons of great contests you can have with your kids! Some ideas that come to mind are: keeping track of the number of pages read, keeping track of the number of chapters read, keeping track of the number of books read, finishing so many books in a specific genre, keeping track of scores on a specific reading standard’s pre- and post-assessment, you can have a tournament of books using picture books, really anything having to do with reading can easily be turned into a small competition with your students! I love the Tournament of Books Idea, and may have to try it myself! Here is the link to the blog post I found it at: http://www.sturdyforcommonthings.com/2012/02/tournament-of-kids-books/. I hope these ideas help! :)

  6. I *LOVE* the Book Swap idea – definitely a fun way to get kids excited about reading books. Nothing makes a book more appealing than when a friend recommends it :) Plus it will help declutter some of their bedrooms – a win-win! :)

    ~Jessica
    Joy in the Journey

  7. Anonymous says:

    Can you send a book swap paper for June. I want to use it for the end of the year so they can use them to read over the summer!

  8. Kristine,

    I love this post! It’s hard to find ideas that will work well in the upper grades for Reading Month. I plan on doing the book swap next week!

    Earlier this week I e-mailed you about featuring this post in my blog series #weekendrecap, but I’m not sure if I had the correct e-mail. Can I link to your post using an image from your blog? If that’s ok, let me know and I’ll update the post! http://www.performingineducation.com/2015/03/weekendrecap-3615.html

    Thank you!

  9. Julie Clark says:

    I just read something interesting given that the 2018 Olympics are around the corner. Students set a reading goal and win bronze. silver and gold medals based on progress towards that goal.

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