Starting Strong and Setting Goals: March is Reading Month

Today was the first day in March I was spending with my students, which meant a kick-off to reading month. I absolutely love the month of March when it comes to all the ways I get to focus on reading with my kids.
The joy.
The love.
The perseverance.
The will to read, read, read, and read some more.

It is always important, but there is something special about celebrating something so crucial for a whole month that makes it that much more special.
We started with a "read-in-the-dark" as a whole school! Kids had little flashlights and eagerly read. My students are third graders, so they are familiar with us reading the first day altogether, but the dark/flashlight reading was new and exciting.
  

A little later this morning, I put out lots of blank paper, one template, a stack of lined paper, staplers, tape, and scissors.
"Make a book to keep all your goals, jots, notes, and thinking from all the reading you do this month!"
Chaos commenced, but the good kind and I watched kids staple too much paper together, and tape it, and take it apart, and put it back together again. I enjoy this kind of magic. I snapped a few pictures of goals students decided to set for themselves. The template I gave them was just a place to store titles, or book cover sketches, goals, or whatever they want. It felt like a good start, and I hope the enthusiasm continues to grow, and these homemade books become something they can look back on as a celebration of their little eight and nine-year-old selves.