Our PTO has lent its support to creating theme-related backpacks that our students may check out of the library. Some packs will have even more exotic items like cookie cutters, sea shells, magnifying glasses, musical instruments, or flashlights. Each kit comes complete with a list of activities for families to do together. Themes for the backpacks include topics such as butterflies, computers, cows, oceans, energy, friendship, snakes, pets, archaeology, cooking, and insects. Encouraging children to read more so they become fluent readers and to learn to love reading is a major focus at the elementary level.
Young children tend to be drawn naturally to fiction books.
By including non fiction books in the backpacks for them to explore, we hope to expand their interests to learning factual information. Magazines that contain theme-related articles also contain numerous other articles which may expand children's interests to other topics. Another important goal we have is to promote parent and child interaction with the books and contents of the backpacks. We have also had cash donations from the community. We hope to add more backpacks as the year progresses.