Take Home Literature Activity Bags
From the Building Blocks Literacy Mailring

Paulie posted these ideas for easy to make take-home Literature Bags.

She lists a book or other piece of literature then some materials and activities children can do at home to extend and enhance learning.

1. Who's Counting? - small ziplock bags of things to count to 10 (20 or whatever) like buttons, keys, spools, bottle caps, bread ties, marbles. Some bags could have exactly ten and some less or more than 10. They could have an activity card to count the number of objects in each bag---one at a time and then make tally marks on a pad for which ones were ten and which ones were less.
2. "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" - Bag of glow in dark stars for temporary use; black construction paper for them to make a star design and "name it." You might give them some stars to stick on the paper or use chalk or white crayon.
3. Ten in the Bed - Send a tape of the song so they could learn it, and ten bears (or anything else that are living) that could roll over and fall off when singing the predictable song. Sheet of paper that has tally marks on it or maybe even rubber stamps of the kind of thing you chose (bears, etc.) and they could mark off each one as they fall out of bed during singing/retelling. They would be doing subtraction, counting how many are left after each one falls off.
4. Clifford's Good Deeds---they could make a card with already folded paper and stickers and crayons for a neighbor or someone they know who could use a card of good wishes or thanks.
5. Clifford's ABC - With parents write and list one thing for as many as they can of the alphabet they have around the house. A=apron and student draws an apron; B= broom and student draws a broom. If done on 26 little pages, it could become a book if you stapled them or put the papers together with some kind of binding.
6. Any other Clifford book --- Send play dough and a bone cookie cutter for a math activity. They can make 5 bones from play dough and then use for adding or subtracting to 5, etc.
7. Arthur Writes a Story - Journal and marking pens.
8. How Do Apples Grow? - paper with 4 trees on it, one for how an apple tree looks each season and materials to make it. It could be 4 small papers and make into a book with a cover and backing. You could send a sample, if you wish, for how to do it.
9. Ollie Goes To School --- Paper lunch bag to decorate with stickers. Send ten stickers and have them choose up to 5. They could bring something in it for show and tell the next day.
10. The Crayon Box that Talked - Send crayon shapes cut on die cut machine in different colors -- the student can make them into a book with pictures they find of things that are the same color by pasting onto that crayon page. The book could already be assembled and children just paste in the pictures of matching colors. If a child doesn't have magazines and newspapers to cut up, you could send some in the bag. Ask parents for their old magazines at beginning of year.
11. "The Itsy Bitsy Spider"- Black paper and chalk or white crayon. Have them make a spider web. You could also send a laminated piece of paper that has a spider web drawn on it. The child can put glue on all the lines and let dry---then remove from the laminated paper design page and have their own spider web.
12. The Wheels on the Bus - Name things that have wheels besides a bus. Could cut pictures or draw them. Could even sort them if you send them with 1 wheel, 2 wheels, 3 wheels, 4 wheels and more than 4 wheels---but don't glue down.
13. One Hundred Hungry Ants - 100 plastic ants to sort into piles of ten so they can realize that 10 piles of ants = 100. You could include a 100 grid or box with ten sections.
14. A Special Kind of Love - Paper and scissors to cut out a valentine heart. You could have paper folded and outline drawn on to cut or the whole outline on flat sheet. Child could then give it to someone they love.
15. The Pledge of Allegiance - Make a wind sock with a paper that is colored first that looks like our flag. Glue or staple on streamers from one side before rounding it and punch three holes in top and hang with three pieces of cord/yarn.
16. Chicka Chicka Sticka Sticka book - (like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, but it has cling on letter stickers children can move up and down the tree)
17. Any book about dinosaurs - Dinosaur game...make a sheet of paper with a track [game board] on it evened off with partitions, a die to roll and move that many spots to get to the end.
18. Any book about the changing process of a caterpillar to butterfly -Puppet of caterpillar with butterfly inside. Send a paper plate on which the child can make the four stages, egg, pupa, larva and adult with pasta shaped like the stage {except the egg could be two or three kernels of unpopped pop corn): the larva a curly noodle, the pupa, a shell noodle (about the size of a dime) and a bow tie noodle with twist of colored pipe cleaner around it for the body and antenna for the adult butterfly. They can glue paper down first, then glue the part that goes in each section illustrated by the story.
19. A fish book - Little pole with a magnet on end and cardboard fish with magnetic backing or could put in between two of the same fish so that it would really look like a fish. Maybe the fish could have numbers on them from 0 through 5 and the student could add two at a time.
20. A bird book - Coloring sheet for a certain kind of bird or several and the child can choose one to color.
21. A frog book - cardboard frogs that have either "A" or "a" (and rest of ABC's) on them and student matches upper and lower case ABC's---could have a paper that shows answers too, for self-correcting.
22. A book about how apples grow - Send a journal so they can draw and write about what they would do with their apples they grew: eat raw, cook into applesauce, bake into a pie, etc.