On Monday the staff of the Burlington Integrated Preschool spent the day putting together take home literacy backpacks. The students will have the opportunity to bring home a backpack. Each backpack will have several theme related children's books in them as well as ideas for questions or activities to complete with your child after reading the books. The goal of the program is that each child will bring home a backpack a couple of times a month. The backpack will go home on Thursday night and will be returned on Tuesday. When you have a backpack at home take some time and read the books with your child. Use the prompts to ask questions about the story. This will do several things, develop listening and comprehension skills, vocabulary development and oral language skills. Most importantly it's a special one-on-one time to spend with your child cuddling and reading great literature.
Taking home a backpack is a big responsibility and we will need your help in support in keeping this program running smoothly. When it's your weekend to have a backpack we ask that you take extra special care of the books and make sure they are not destroyed while in your care. We ask that the books are returned in the same condition they were sent to you. We realize that overtime they will become worn, but if we all work together to take good care of the books they will last a long time. It will also be very important that you return your backpacks on a Tuesday. This will ensure that another family can get them on Thursday. Keep in mind that the children will be excited to take backpacks home and if they are not returned promptly they can't go back out.
We are very excited about this home backpack program and feel that it's a great addition to our strong literacy curriculum. Please keep in mind that this program is new and will be a work in progress. We welcome your comments, suggestions and thoughts about the program. When you have a backpack for the weekend share with us what worked and didn't work and what you enjoyed and didn't like that much. The goals is to always make the program stronger and we can only do that with your input.
We hope that you enjoy your backpacks and are as excited about them as we are.
