What's a fun way to keep track of Read Alouds?

[jsleepymom]

We read a ton at our house and it seems that's going to be the bulk of our 'official' K year. I thought it would be fun to keep track of our read alouds in the kids' notebooks. My first idea was to make a copy of the cover of each book and slide them into page protectors, but I wonder if that will get to be too much.

 

What do you do to remember the books you've enjoyed throughout the year? A typed list? A picture list of thumbnails of the book covers? Do you keep some sort of record of books read independently as well??

 

I am an obvious newbie, but you will be seeing a lot more of me the closer and closer we get to our official start date :tongue_smilie:!

 

Thanks for the help!

[kalanamak]

I used it as a step into narration. I'd ask some question about the book, and jot down the title and his answer. I think the notebook exited this winter when I "halved it all", but he was quite proud of it while we did it. Nothing clever or artistic in it, but it was useful, academically.

[Night Elf]

When they were 4 and 5 yrs. old, we used butcher paper and drew a tree that we hung on the wall. I cut out leaves and every time we finished a book, we'd write the title on the leaf and hang on the leaf on the wall on the tree. Aww.. I had forgotten about that. The kids loved it.

 

We also traced their bodies on butcher paper and I let them color them. Those turned out really cute too.

 

Adding: we did keep a typed list one year. I never referred back to it. We found it late last year when I was going through some boxes of curriculum. We didn't recognize many of the titles. I don't even know why I kept it.

[AudreyTN]

:lurk5: and taking notes....

[VBoulden]

I stopped in to see how everyone answered this question. :bigear:

 

I've been wondering if we should try and keep a record of what we read out loud or what my daughter reads to herself, too.

 

I keep photos on my blog of the books we LISTEN to on CD or tape...

it would be too many pics to take to keep track of the ones we read aloud or she reads to herself.

 

We also do narrations and keep them in a notebook (but for only SOME of the titles we read, mostly short stories and fables). Here's a link to my blog. It shows some examples of the narrations in my daughter's notebooks. Read all the way down, down, down to see more posts with the most pics and explanations of the notebook.

 

http://www.veronicaboulden.com/search/label/Narration

 

:D

 

(I know high school students will often make a list of books read to show with college applications, but that's a long way off for my five year old.)

 

Right now, we are participating in the local library's reading program. Your library might have one, too. It's mostly targeted to public schooled kids, but we are welcome to do it, too, and I am happy to have someone else provide the prizes. :001_smile:

 

But, for that, we have to keep track of hours spent reading, not titles...:glare:

 

Anyway, I loved the idea for the leaves on the trees and the links in the chains! :D

 

Maybe we could do both... the leaves on the tree in the spring AND the links of the chain in the winter and then use it on the tree... Maybe I could make a deal with my daughter to get to 100 leaves or links and then get a BIG treat.

[Nestof3]

These are the cutest ideas!

 

I have a binder with tabs: science, history, art, music, misc. I write down books as we read them. I like to share my lists with people when they ask about what we read for a certain topic.

 

When they were 4 and 5 yrs. old, we used butcher paper and drew a tree that we hung on the wall. I cut out leaves and every time we finished a book, we'd write the title on the leaf and hang on the leaf on the wall on the tree. Aww.. I had forgotten about that. The kids loved it.

 

We didn't recognize many of the titles. I don't even know why I kept it.

 

but this summer we also started a paper chain--like those homemade Christmas tree decoration things.

 

When we finish a book, we write the book title and author on the strip of paper and then attach it to the chain. Each boy has a different color for the books he reads, and I have a third color for readalouds.

[Momof1plustwins]

I had never thought about this before. This would be a nice way to remember those stories. The wheels of my mind are turning....hmmm :glare:......I think it would be fun after your daily reading to have a discussion about the reading, and you could write these narrations down. At the end of the book you'd have maybe a one page summary of the book. The children could tell you what their favorite parts and characters were too. Then you could type out the narrations on the computer and insert a thumbnail of the book cover somewhere on the page. Make the page look pretty somehow. Use fancy fonts and borders. Slip them into page protectors and put in a binder. Any time someone is trying to think of the name of a book that they enjoyed and maybe want to revisit, they could read through those summaries and find the right one. Just an idea.

[Hedgehogs4]

OMGoodness! I love the idea of a tree with a leaf for every read-aloud!!! my dd5 has listened to all her big brother's books and enjoys them all, but she really needs some of her own. I want to make a tree for them and let them do that. Thanks for the idea!

[AudreyTN]

OMGoodness! I love the idea of a tree with a leaf for every read-aloud!!!

 

:iagree: I do too, but we're getting ready to move... we don't have room for one here and probably won't wherever we move to...

 

Hmmm... what if... I have a sketch-type notebook and the first page is a tree. We still glue on a leaf for each book that we read, but the following pages are drawings or narrations of the books...

[crazyforlatin]

I really like the idea of a tree with leaves, but where to get brown butcher paper? Ikea has them for free but I can't go in there and pull out a 10-foot piece....

...or can I?

[Night Elf]

I really like the idea of a tree with leaves, but where to get brown butcher paper? Ikea has them for free but I can't go in there and pull out a 10-foot piece....

...or can I?

 

I got that roll of white paper from a school supply store. However, I know that Walmart sells rolls in their Arts and Crafts section. :)

[In2why]

When they were 4 and 5 yrs. old, we used butcher paper and drew a tree that we hung on the wall. I cut out leaves and every time we finished a book, we'd write the title on the leaf and hang on the leaf on the wall on the tree. Aww.. I had forgotten about that. The kids loved it.

 

We also traced their bodies on butcher paper and I let them color them. Those turned out really cute too.

 

Adding: we did keep a typed list one year. I never referred back to it. We found it late last year when I was going through some boxes of curriculum. We didn't recognize many of the titles. I don't even know why I kept it.

 

 

What a GREAT idea! I am so going to steal your creative genius and make our own reading tree.

Right now we are making snakes based on the books they are reading to me. It has a cool snake head and then we add circles with the name of the book to make it longer. It reminds me of the catapillars we made in grade school, and the kids love seeing it grow.

[AudreyTN]

OR adding fish (either stickers or cut-outs) to a paper aquarium.

 

...the wheels are turning now... LOL

[mcconnellboys]

I keep a running list.

 

When my older son was young, I found a large crayon template. It was about six inches long and had a line for the book title and author. I printed a bunch of them on different colors of paper and cut them out. I had a large poster for each month and we glued a crayon on it for each book he read (I used these to encourage his reading, but you could use them for anything.)

[kwickimom]

oh..a tree with 3 different color leaves for my DC's would look awesome!! Now I just need some more walls in this house, I still dont have room for a timeline :)

[trueblue]

We did a "Reading Tree" too a couple of years ago, but used paper apples with the name of the book, the date we read it and a little picture of the book taped to the apple. We had a really large tree from a teacher supply store laminated and we've used it for all kinds of things since then. It's been up for 5 years in one way/shape or form.

[TwinMominTX]

We made a giant caterpillar. I drew a caterpillar head and then the body was circles with the names and authors of the books. One color for group read alouds and then different colors for each child's independent reading books. It was cute.

[NanceXToo]

You could make a book of books read. You can write down the title (if the kids can't write independently) and then the kids can draw a picture of their favorite scene from the book or something.

 

I do keep a typed log for my daughter because I legally have to keep a log of reading materials used, so it's just a wordpad doc that I print at the end of each year to include with my portfolio. But she's going into 5th grade.

 

For a younger kid who isn't of compulsory age yet and you're keeping it for fun/memories, I think there were lots of cute ideas here!

[jsleepymom]

Wow! I was so happy to see all the replies this afternoon!

 

Veronica, I'm about to check out your blog!

 

I love the tree idea, but I don't think I can come up with enough wall space for something like that :(.

 

I would really like to do a narration type activity or even just drawing a picture or coloring a page, Josh is not particularly 'into' coloring and whatnot all the time though and I'm not sure I understand how narration works with K'ers. :auto: to look at little Norah's samples!

 

Well, I'm back and can honestly say that Josh would not be able to draw anything that well! In fact, I don't think I'm as creative and artistic as Norah :D. We may fool around a bit and see if we can make it fun for him (his main issue is not wanting to try and draw things if he doesn't know how to do it perfectly...maybe we should try the 'Drawing with Children' program :confused:..). Thanks so much Veronica for sharing details of your narration experience, it really helps to see what it looks like in real life! So do you and Norah do narrations for every subject? How frequently would you say you try and make narration pages for her notebook?

 

Hm, I also like the caterpillar idea and that would probably be easier to find space for that up above our playroom shelves.

 

Thank you for all the ideas and please keep them coming! I've got a lot to think about now :)!

[jsleepymom]

I used it as a step into narration. I'd ask some question about the book, and jot down the title and his answer. I think the notebook exited this winter when I "halved it all", but he was quite proud of it while we did it. Nothing clever or artistic in it, but it was useful, academically.

 

Just re-reading this thread and saw this idea. It may be a little more doable for us, like you said a good step into narration.

 

Thanks!

[dragons in the flower bed]

We use GoodReads. It's fun to share with friends, gets the kids rating every book and writing brief summaries or opinion statements, and there are any number of ways to review your lists in any category. You can even make lists of books to read in various categories.

[lovemyboys]

We read a ton at our house and it seems that's going to be the bulk of our 'official' K year. I thought it would be fun to keep track of our read alouds in the kids' notebooks. My first idea was to make a copy of the cover of each book and slide them into page protectors, but I wonder if that will get to be too much.

 

What do you do to remember the books you've enjoyed throughout the year? A typed list? A picture list of thumbnails of the book covers? Do you keep some sort of record of books read independently as well??

 

I am an obvious newbie, but you will be seeing a lot more of me the closer and closer we get to our official start date :tongue_smilie:!

 

Thanks for the help!

 

When dc were young readers, I would make a door decoration -- one year was ice cream cones. I cut a bunch of ice cream scoop shapes out of different colors. When dc finished a book (even the little bob books at the very beginning!) they or I would write the name of the book and tape it onto the cone. By the end of the year, they had teetering cones of icecream stretching up to the top of the door. Another year it was a treasure chest that we filled with gold coins.

 

We also used to keep a running list in one of our notebooks. I would just write the title and author. When dc started reading, I would add an initial after the book noting who did (some or all) reading. It was a great way to flip back through to see all the books or if we wanted to look something up.

 

Your photocopies of covers is a neat visual for all of you. Even if you don't stick with it long-term, it'll be a fun reminder of your early days.

 

:001_smile:

[Night Elf]

Thank you for all the ideas and please keep them coming! I've got a lot to think about now :)!

 

How about a paper chain type thing you can hang from the ceiling? You could anchor it in one corner, and when it got to be a certain length, anchor the next piece so that you end up with swags. But if you have high ceilings, that might not work. :)

 

I don't have any wall room in this house either. We have the hall but there isn't really one big expanse of wall because there are so many doors. We have a staircase and the wall is obviously a sharp slant, but something like that could work with the caterpillar idea.

 

Or, if you can't do the tree since it takes up so much space in one place, how about flowers or balloons that you can put in different areas around a room?

 

I also like the idea of a book of books. I would put a small copy of the book cover, title and author. Rating it might be fun. Use small star stickers and have a rating system for 5 stars is a super great book to 1 star is a really bad book. Though I wouldn't even include really bad books in my collection. :D

 

Oh, and I don't think you should have your child narrate every book. That will get old fairly quickly. I can't remember how often a young child should narrate. My WTM book is downstairs. But I'm certain it isn't alot!

[Nestof3]

Hey -- that's a great idea too. Thanks! :D

 

We use GoodReads. It's fun to share with friends, gets the kids rating every book and writing brief summaries or opinion statements, and there are any number of ways to review your lists in any category. You can even make lists of books to read in various categories.

[Julie Kirkwood]

We are doing a caterpillar and adding circles to it for each book that my son reads this summer. If you have the most recent issue of Highlights magazine, there is an example there. We used a Creative Memories circle cutter to cut different colors of cardstock for the caterpillar's body.

Love the idea of a tree, though. I just saw huge rolls of butcher paper at Costco today but didn't get it. We will be going back tomorrow. ;) I have thought of a million uses for butcher paper since I saw it earlier today.

Veronica, the narration with a pictures is wonderful! I just bought the Mona Brooks book and plan to use it with my son.

[Mert]

:bigear: I'm loving all the cute ideas!! Having a reading list to fill out for the library has been a great motivator for me this summer. I'd love to continue with something like this during the school year.

[robsiew]

I don't do anything fancy... I just write them in my lesson plan book. If I remember... we read so many books... I'm sure I didn't track them all.

[peacefully]

.

[sadiegirl]

my kids each keep a notebook and we make a print a copy of the front of the book...they also write a review of the book and date they begin and finish the book.

One of my sons loves to draw so he will often draw a scene or character from the book instead of using a copy off the computer. I like this idea for us because it will be something they can keep and look back in years to come to see how many books they read and what type of books they liked over the years.

[jsleepymom]

I hadn't thought about using door-space!

 

I like making the list with thumbnails as well.

 

I'm making an official decision not to do narrations after today. All we're doing this summer is continuing with OPGTR and that along with all the chaos of feedings, diaperings, wiping hineys and minimal cleaning is exhausting many of the day's hours. Starting to stress about how we will actually get any schooling done for our K year now :glare:!

 

Thanks again for all the ideas. When I get a few spare moments I will take a better look and try to figure what will work best for us!