About Book BAGS

Book BAGS (Books and Great Stuff!) are a fun way to engage students and their families in literacy activities and reading at home. Each bag contains at least two books, coordinating activities, a reading guide to assist parents and a journal for recording how the bags were used in the home. After gaining permission to participate in the Book BAGS program, students choose a bag each Thursday to take home and complete. It is important to allow students to choose their bag each week, not assign them. This allows them to be  motivated to read and complete the activities at home. Book BAGS are returned on the following Tuesday. This gives students three week nights and two days over the weekend to complete the activities.

This site will assist in creating a set of 26 Book BAGS to use in the classroom with K-2 students. Each bag is centered around a theme. The books and activities in the bag reinforce the theme and support literacy and other subject areas including math, science, social studies and practical living. Students are asked to complete a journal entry before returning the bag to describe his/her family's experience with the books and activities. These journals are left in the bags so that students can read how their classmates used the bags in their homes.

The funding for this program was provided by a grant from the Dollar General Store Literacy Foundation. Materials to create the bags were purchased from Scholastic, Amazon, Oriental Trading , Lakeshore and Wal-Mart. Click on the "Make Your Own" tab to get the materials and books for each bag.