March 2015

FREE FAMILY READ ALOUD

PROGRAM!
Books Are Building Blocks
Kailua Kona Library
TUESDAY March 31, 2015
4:30PM - 6:30PM
The Friends of the Libraries, Kona is
hosting their free family Read Aloud
Program, "Books are Building Blocks,"
from 4:30-6:30 p.m. on Tuesday, March
31st at the Kailua Kona Public Library.
Registration will take place from 4:305:00 p.m. in front of the library.
This months guest
speaker will be Nancy
Tashima, curator and
science teacher from the
Onizuka Space Center!
She will be making a
presentation on the
International Space
Station and planetary
exploration.
Schedule:
4:30-5:00 Registration (Free!)
5:00-5:20 Presentation by Nancy
Tashima
5:20-5:50 Break-out Reading Groups (by
Age Group)
5:50-6:30 Refreshments and Wrap-Up
Come for a family fun evening filled
with reading, pizza, door prizes, and
free books!
*Parents must attend the program with their
children.

Aloha!
We are excited to announce the official launch of the IGNITE website!

Please check it out at www.igniteliteracy.com

We will be posting everything IGNITE related on it, including events,
incentive programs, and information for our current tutors, future
tutors, and the community! We will also have a page dedicated to
newsletters so you can access everything electronically, whenever youd
like! Feel free to check out our page Resources for Tutors, as well, for
reading activities, articles, and tips for teaching your own student at
home. This will be updated constantly so visit often! Mahalo!

Amanda Talarico & Christina Colver

AmeriCorps VISTAs

Kindergarten & First Grade

Pipe Cleaner Letters
Your child may be learning phonics and starting to read first words.
Use fun and fuzzy pipe cleaners to help your child learn how to form
important letters and letter combinations that make up the words
that are the building blocks of phonics.
What You Need:
Pipe cleaners
Pictures of letters for reference (if necessary
What You Do:
Take two (or more if necessary) pipe cleaners and bend and twist
them to create the lowercase letters "a" and "t". Put them together.
Have your child create the letters c, b, m, and p.
Put the "c" your child created in front of your "at".
Have your child read the word.
Repeat this process with the rest of the letters he/she created.
You can repeat this activity with "ie" and have your child create
words like lie, tie, die, and pie. Don't forget, you can also practice
with uppercase letters!

Firework!

A reader is not
always a leader, but
a leader is always a
reader.
- David Gergen

Book Picks
Kindergarten
Corduroy
by Don Freeman
First Grade
The Giving Tree
by Shel Silverstein
Second Grade
The Chocolate Touch
by Patrick Skene Catling
Third Grade
The Twits
by Roald Dahl
Fourth Grade
The Lion, the Witch, and the
Wardrobe
by C.S. Lewis
Fifth Grade
The Witches
by Roald Dahl

Page 2

Second & Third Grade

Storyteller
Have your child use a marker to divide a sheet of paper into four
sections, then write the following words in the boxes (in order
from top to bottom, left to right): First, Next, Then, Finally.
Have your child think of a story he/she would like to tell.
Encourage him/her to take notes about an event that has
happened in the past week
Ask him/her to begin the story using the word already written in
the box. There should be at least three sentences per box. The
first box should set up the story, the second box will further the
story and create suspense or a dilemma. The third box will
resolve the dilemma and explain how it was resolved. The fourth
box completes the story and may include further results or
effects of what happened.
Have him/her read the story aloud when finished, and ask the
following: Does it sound like a complete story? Does everything
make sense? Are there any sentences that need to be edited or
removed?
When finished, have him/her read the completed story to friends
or family.

Fourth & Fifth Grade

Fact or Fiction?
Pick an article out of the local newspaper or from an online news
source. Have your child read the article.
Discuss the article with your child and ask him/her to formulate a
conclusion about why the events in the article took place.
Have your child create a web chart to display his/her ideas with the
conclusion in the center of the chart. Then ask him/her to write
statements (facts from the article) that support the conclusion in
ovals surrounding the conclusion. Then link the ovals to the
statement.
Next, discuss the meaning of inferences with your child. Remember
that an inference is an idea that is suggested, but not stated plainly
as a fact. Ask your child to draw a few inferences from the article.
Then add those to the chart with boxes instead of circles and connect
them to the corresponding facts from which each inference was
made.
Ask your child to give an oral presentation about the article to family
members using this intricate web chart, and explaining how he/she
reached the conclusion using inferences.