A Week of Read Across America Activities

Looking for fun ways to add reading-related activities to your classroom plans for Read Across America week? (Or any other time?) These ideas from Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher make it easy.

She’s got five days of ideas that incorporate a book, activities, snacks (if you can have those in your classroom) and more. You can use the books she listed or choose different ones based on what you have in your classroom or your grade level (these are aimed at grades 2-5).

For example you can read The Legend of Rock, Paper, Scissors and then listen to some rock music while you play rock, paper, scissors (among other activities).

Check out the blog post for all the ideas and to download a free 35-page guide with complete lesson plans, questions, student printables, activity ideas and more.

[Photo: Diary of a Not So Wimpy Teacher.]

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We don’t really have any travel to speak of planned this summer, and my daughter is old enough that any lengthy time in the car is usually spent with an audiobook or watching videos. But I remember the struggle of keeping little kids entertained on long trips, especially if you don’t want them on a screen the whole time.

I recently saw this post from Creating Really Awesome Fun Things, which is a roundup of 26 road trip games, ideas and activities that kids can do. From stringing beads onto pipe cleaners to felt busy boards, travel journals and using a pizza box to contain colors, trains (or cars) and more, there are lots of fun and easy ideas here.

I’m a big fan of printable road trip activities, and even have a whole post all about printables for road trips. I used to always do some kind of license plate game, a map, mazes and I-spy style scavenger hunts, which are fun for everyone in the car to play along with. (You can also find some patriotic road trip mazes here.) If your road trip includes a camping trip, check out these camping themed printable games and activities.

Productive Pete has a super cute map of the United States (pictured above) that kids can use in lots of different ways while on the road. They can color the states you travel through, or all the states they’ve ever visited, or use it to give the license plate game an extra challenge as they try to find each state on the map. You can quiz older kids on the state capitols, which you might need to brush up on yourself (guilty!).

Do you have particular games or activities that you always have on hand when you are doing a road trip with kids? I would love to hear about them!

[Photo: Productive Pete.]

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