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You’re in for a doozy of a post. I’ve kept this idea under wraps for 3 years. A few years ago when I taught 5th grade at a former school, I was a member of the Literacy Committee. I’m just as committed to building literacy in kiddos as I am to sharing the love of Social Studies with them. Our literacy coach had a family emergency a couple weeks before our annual Literacy Night so I volunteered to help with the planning. Basically I ended up hijacking it and with another teacher who was a super-detailed task master I turned it into an undercover Social Studies night!
I definitely faced some challenges because several of the other teachers participating wanted to do things the same old way and weren’t open to change. Chalk that one up to #visonaryproblems. I powered through and the night was a hit with parents and students and that’s what matters! Naturally this was before I started blogging or Insta-storying so I have no pictures of the actual event so you’ll have to bear with dramatic re-enactments. Um, by that I mean graphic design collages. Hopefully this post will spark some ideas for how you can help your school plan an integrated literacy night as well.
Pro tip-If you love SS and want to have a Social Studies night but you know there might be some opposition start by highlighting that it’s literacy and sneak in the Social Studies. Insert my rant about the problems with cutting out the arts and humanities for a STEM focus here.
Since my creative brain works in connections, analogies, and metaphors when I plan an event it always has a theme. I blame Pinterest for that, too. I thought back to how popular BINGO night was at a school I had worked at previously and a spark ignited. We’d have sessions along with a BINGO night! And the prize? Books!
So to really amp up the BINGO theme, I came up with a way to use the letters B-I-N-G-O to organize the sessions. I think it’s the Southern belle in me but when I plan an event with a theme, I go all out! So here are the details!
General Planning Tips for Those in Charge
Every school has their own way of organizing committees and extra-curricular events. At mine teachers all had to volunteer to participate in Math, Science, Literacy, or Art night along with being on a committee. So the Literacy Committee members obviously plan and participate in Literacy Night but there were additional teacher volunteers. Delegate specific tasks. Allow for input but make sure no more than 2 people are the final decision-makers (in addition to admin of course). It’s easier to just assign people to do things sometimes instead of having them come up with their own ideas. This holds true for busy teachers especially. They might appreciate just being able to show up to the event and have everything ready. That’s how I planned it. If possible, I’d allow at least a month to put all this together. We could’ve used a meeting to touch base to explain everything in person because some people refused to read their emails and then feigned ignorance the night of the event.
Send home flyers ahead of time several weeks in a row and enlist your clubs, morning news crew, etc. to help you create posters and advertise the event. Also make sure to post it on your school website and teacher sites. A promo video is always attention-grabbing. Could be as simple as a slide-show of teachers holding their favorite books.
The Pre-Game Warm-Up BINGO FOR BOOKS
Ask for donations or hit up garage sales or Goodwill to get books to use as prizes. If your school gives you a budget (mine did not), you could hit up one of those epic Scholastic Warehouse Sales or catch those $1 deals. Bookmarks would be great, too! I found some free book character BINGO games online. The parents enjoyed the nostalgia as well. If that seems too primary, have a K-2 game going and a 3-5 with different book characters. The one I picked worked well for all ages and it was easy for all families to participate in since the pictures were easy to recognize. We had many non-English speaking parents at the school and they were able to join in, too!
Organizing The Sessions
After BINGO, families visited different classrooms for activities. It seems that on parent nights it’s easier to make sessions on-going/drop-in activities rather than structured because families may be entering and exiting at different times. We designated certain classrooms convenient to the main entrance of the school. We had two teachers per room (could include volunteers or older students) and we also had staff greeting parents and pointing them in the right direction. Make sure you have someone reliable to be a floater in case someone who is in charge of a session doesn’t show up or more copies are needed, etc. I led a session so my co-planner filled this role. This person can also snap pictures of the event! We had asked the teachers to drop by her office to pick up session instructions ahead of time and I had them in an envelope ready to go, This way it was easy to stick in the mailbox of those people who can’t follow directions. Can you tell I was irritated with teachers who didn’t stay informed???
Of course teachers could have done their own thing with the directions/theme but I gave them materials anyways so they just had to show up like I said. There were 5 different sessions parents could go to based on the letters in BINGO. We used 10 classrooms and offered the same sessions on two different halls. Make sure to have signs for classroom doors where sessions will be held. We allotted an hour for the sessions and at the very end we had kindergartners perform some songs in the cafeteria.
Another pro-tip-If you want parents to attend, have kids involved by performing! We put the performance at the end of the night so that families would come early and attend the sessions. Lots of times people leave immediately following one!
Session Details
BINGO stood for:
Bringing SS to Life through Graphic Novels
Informational Writing Using Primary Sources
Non-fiction Comprehension Using Foldables
Genre Gallery
Options for Vocabulary and Spelling
Each one of those sessions was organized by BINGO as well. Yes, I really did. There was a Bring It Home (make and take), IN the Room (fun activity to do there), and a GO Online (gotta integrate that technology) along with a different BINGO game. I’m not kidding about sticking with a theme y’all.
Bringing SS to Life through Graphic Novels
This is the session I worked in. Other staff members manned the rest of the rooms using my directions and activities. This session featured a collection of “You Wouldn’t Want to Be” books and March by John Lewis spread out on tables for students to peruse. I almost died when a parent picked up one of my YWWTB books and walked out with it. Note to self (and to you) to not use your own personal collection of books. I also had Mission History cued up on a few computers (create some generic accounts ahead of time). I also had comic strip templates for students to create their own “graphic novel” for what they were studying in Social Studies.
Informational Writing Using Primary Sources
For this session I pulled primary source photos for each grade level. I had previously emailed the grade chairs to see what each grade level was currently studying. I had a graphic organizer for analyzing them and explained how this would be pre-writing. It was around Thanksgiving so I pulled some related to The First Thanksgiving, too. This session was the inspiration for my Writing BINGO product line. I created the Informational/Expository Writing BINGO just for this because nothing similar existed (and later a Narrative and Persuasive version). I didn’t want topic ideas or prompts and that’s all I could find. My games include basic components for the style of writing.
Nonfiction Comprehension Using Foldables
For this, I pulled some biographies and found some foldable freebies for Thurgood Marshall and Alexander Graham Bell on Teachers Pay Teachers. I also had found directions for a blank mini-book you make out of construction/copy paper on Pinterest (practice ahead of time if you’re a creative brain like me).
Genre Gallery
This one was easy to find activities for. Tons of freebies on TpT! I made sure I had something for multiple ages. I had a real and fantasy picture sort for younger students and whipped up a giant sorting game on chart paper. I pulled miscellaneous library books and labeled boxes on the chart paper realistic fiction, mystery, etc. Students placed the books in the right category. Good for those kinesthetic learners!
Options for Vocabulary and Spelling
This was another session with endless possibilities. I pulled a Boggle game and a prefix/suffix matching one. You could find (or make) content area vocabulary matching cards for different grade levels or have sight word activities for younger students.
I’m pretty sure I even had families use a BINGO board to mark off sessions, too. I hope this post has inspired you to think about how you could host a BINGO night or has least expanded your mind about integrating Social Studies into a Literacy Family Night at your school. It would probably make more sense to use a spreadsheet to organize stuff but I’m a “creative” and I didn’t! I created the flyers before I even starting using Powerpoint to create stuff so you can definitely keep it simple. You could tweak this and make it work for classroom stations, too! Have an entire BINGO day! It integrates literacy and tied to standards and fun at the same time!