April Showers Unit and A Reading Incentive

I am SO pumped to finally be done with my brand new, beautiful (if I do say so) TpT unit- April Showers...A Springtime Weather Unit for Primary Learners.

Whew, I worked hard on this one, and I hope it shows! I actually made lesson plans for each of the five days included in this unit. Each day covers a different type of weather: sun, wind, clouds, rain/storms, and rainbows. I've included some of the projects I posted about here last week, as well as TONS of printables/reproducibles for your students! Lesson plans have step by step directions for science experiments and art projects, I've recommended read alouds and included literacy activities like class book templates and reader's responses.

Enough with the self promotion (but I seriously am proud of this unit). Just wanted to share a quick idea for a reading incentive with you. I quickly made this flower on chart paper since we are doing our plants/flowers unit right now. I put it up on the white board and made a scale of 0-60 points on the side of the flower. I wrote each student's name on some magnetic tape (duct covers from Menard's work well, too).

The incentive works like this: each time a student remembers to bring their sight word bag (covered in an earlier post) and book bag to school they earn a point. They earn a point for every book they read. A chapter book is worth 3 points. When every student gets to the top of the flower, the class earns a reward!

For their reward, my class decided to do a family night at a favorite local ice cream parlor. The parents seem to be on board with it. I like that the kids think it's a competition, but the class really needs to encourage each other so everyone gets to the top...nothing like a little peer pressure and promise of ice cream to beat the end-of-the-year fever!