Thank you! My Literacy Bags By AmberM

I Teach First Grade... and love it!

My Bags are the plain cavas type bags, I get them in the craft department at Wal-Mart or Michaels. I sew three large snaps across the top.I design the bag front on my computer with print artist 12.0 or I scan in a related book cover, then I print it on iron on paper and then transfer onto the bag.

My students all must have their parents sign a form at the beginning of the year so the parents know the bags will come weekly and the rules and care for them. If items are missing or the bag is not returned the child may not get another one until its returned or replaced. Since they have a signed form we are allowed also to hold report cards until its return, however I never have had to do that.

My kids favorites are The Berenstain Bear Bag. I have three books in it. "Report Card Trouble" "Homework Hassle" and "Bears on the Moon" There is a folder with a maze to the bears home and color sheets of Sister Bear playing Baseball and Papa being chased by bees. I drew in Word bubbles on the pages so the kids could write in captions. When they bring these back I put them up on the wall by where we line up so they can be read. See BerenstainBears.com for patterns for color sheets and puppets!

The other one that is a favorite is the Popcorn Bag. I have the story The popcorn Shop and it has an open ending so the students can write what happens next at the pizza shop. I also include a bag of microwave popcorn that the pop and then use to design popcorn art, which also turns out cute. They use glue, paint, markers, glitter and create. I also have in the bage a worhsheet where they count and write how many groups of ten popped and how many are unpopped.

All my bags have at least one book. I do have whisperphones made like decsribed above,except I sratched the surface with fine sand paper and then painted them. Some have books on tape and Walkman HeadSets.(I never seem to replace batteries, I guess the kids have their parents put new ones in!) Some of my other bags topics are:
Frogs
Bumble Bees
Catterpillar/Butterflies
Teddy Bears
Rainbows
Clifford
Napping House
Cat in the Hat
Swimmy
Rainbow Fish
Junie B.Jones
Apples
Seasons
Friends
Camping
Moon and Stars
I can't remember any others right now!

Thanks again for the suggestions!