Read Alouds - Using Bumper Stickers to Teach Theme

I was fortunate enough to hear a presentation by Lester Laminak!  The day was so amazing, I didn't know where to begin because he shared so many ideas!!!  I'm still processing (a day later)  :)  I always like to find things that I can immediately implement after a professional development.  Two takeaways that I plan to start immediately are:

1) Have a read aloud during the day that is called the "Nonfiction Spotlight" daily.  This can be done by themes or just nonfiction books students would enjoy.  The purpose is not only to provide students with knowledge about the subject, but also to familiarize them with the structure of nonfiction text.

2) To help students learn about the concept of a theme, explain that bumper stickers usually express a theme.  Then after reading a story, have students create a bumper sticker to explain the theme of the book. Move the book to a tub with a bumper sticker identifying the theme.  Anytime you read a book with that theme, it goes in that tub.

I decided to try this with books that were around the theme of "It's Great to be Me!"  Each day I'd read a picture book out loud.  After the third book, I'd read a picture book from a different theme (The Importance of Rules).  Hopefully students would recognize that this book was different, and we'd create a new bumper sticker for picture books with the theme of "The Importance of Rules."

Below are the first nine picture books we are going to use!

 

 

Click this link for a free Bumper Sticker Template!