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Like most parents, I like to be involved in my children’s education and learning. I draw a lot from my own years as a teacher to help enhance what they are doing at school, especially over the summer and as we prepare for the upcoming year. I used to work with struggling readers at the elementary level, so creating fun and engaging activities around books was something I like to do. One of my favorite things to do is develop file folder activities for books. These are so easy to do – and kids really like them. They can be a portable learning activity (great for cars or travel) and can be tailored to work on skills your child needs reinforcement with. I was recently inspired to create some file folder activities for some new books we are adding to our home library. Thanks to Kellogg’s Family Rewards, purchasing Kellogg’s products is earning us free books! It has never been easier to build your at-home library or to donate to a school of your choice.
I plan on redeeming books as we fill our pantry with some of our favorite Kellogg’s products for back-to-school. It’s a win-win. Great snacks and breakfast and books to help reinforce skills. One title I redeemed was The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Book. I knew it would be fun and engaging for both my 5 year old son and my 3 year old daughters. One book – different skills. 
In creating a file folder activity, decide on three or four areas that you want to cover. For this book,I chose to focus on sequencing for comprehension, alphabetical order and rhyming using key vocabulary words. Not only do these activities help reinforce skills, but the activities can help the chosen vocabulary words become part of your child’s reading/writing and spelling memory. 
While we enjoyed Kellogg’s Apple Jacks for breakfast, we found it easy to find our code inside the box and redeem. While I ordered mostly hard copies of the books, I did want to have one or two e-books – great for traveling!
The Old Lady Who Swallowed Some Books was a perfect choice for back-to-school and the multi-age learners in our home. The girls are younger, but still were able to do the sequencing activity while we read together. 
My son, while enjoying an afternoon snack of a Rice Krispies Treat – was able to work on sequencing from memory, rhyming and alphabetical order. 
Some other ideas for file folder activities – depending on book: order of events, graph and counting, fill in the blank, discussion questions, cause/effect, matching, spelling and board games with comprehension questions. 
More About Kellogg’s Family Rewards & How To Get Your Books
Kellogg’s Family Rewards is making it simple for you to redeem up to 30 books! 1 Kellogg’s product = 1 free, full length, Scholastic Book. 30 books will help you build a fantastic library for your child or to help a teacher do the same for his/her classroom by selecting the donate option. To get started, all you have to do is to look for marked Kellogg’s products. I found some of our favorite cereals and snacks at Walmart. The cereals were located in the center of aisle, in an easy to find, specially marked pallet display. 
It was so easy to enter the code via the website after creating a Kellogg’s Family Rewards account. Simply view book choices and choose a book. You can opt to have the book mailed to you, or download an e-book – however, e-books cannot be donated. The books will be mailed to you, or wherever you donate, free of charge. Codes must be entered by 3/31/16. What I love about the selection is that there are 80 titles – from beginning readers to teens and spanish books are available. Buying online? That’s okay, too. Concumers can buy directly on Walmart.com and receive a free book from purchases made between 7/21/15 and 9/11/15. Look for the Buy Now Button at www.walmart.com/KelloggsBackToSchoolBooks for a list of all eligible items. Ecommerce redemptions are made via receipt scanning – either via your computer or the Kellogg’s Family Reward App.
Tips for Developing Life Long Love of Reading
Developing a love of reading is a key part of student learning and success. It sets the pace and tone for later school years. So, how do you make sure your kids love to read? Share the pleasure and power of reading – Read with your children, let your children see you reading, discuss books and help your child to explore his/her imagination through reading! Encourage kids to choose books that inspire them – Use an interest to be a catalyst to develop reading skills. Make reading a happy habit at home – Set aside family reading time or make it a routine at bedtime, in the morning or whenever it works for your family. Read aloud together, no matter how old your children are – Reading aloud is proven to help children develop and acquire language skills, phonemic awareness and comprehension skills. Added to that, it’s a great bonding activity between parent and child. Fill your home library with books of different lengths, genres, and reading levels, so your child can discover the right book, at the right time.
Be sure to check out more books available via this Kellogg’s offer at HERE. I’d love to hear your favorite book offered! #Back2SchoolReady
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* Please contact me if you would like this particular file folder activity *
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This is a great idea! I wish I had found it at the beginning of the summer since it’s almost back to school time for my son! But I’m going to file this activity away for winter break! Thanks for sharing
I love this idea. My big girl is 2.5 and we do lots of activities to encourage and grow her love for reading. I will definitely add this to our list. We currently have a toddler bookclub so this is a great supplement to that. Will definitely look through the book offerings from Kellogg’s and purchase products towards redemption.
This is such a great idea! I am such a firm believer in the benefits of learning with file folders. I used to use them in my autism preschool classroom when I taught and I also used them with my children at home 🙂
I am a reader and my son had a hard time doing it until he found the diary of wimpy kids. He loved the series so much that he started to read more.
This is such a creative idea! I love this for organizing and teaching. It looks like a wonderfully effective way to organize ideas and tasks. I can definitely see the benefits of using this system!
This is a wonderful idea, that parents can use during the summer and weekends to keep their little ones engaged. Reading has become almost a lot art in our society and I am glad that there are clever ways to get their attention.
What a creative idea. My twin granddaughters just turned four and we’ve been practicing a lot to enhance their reading skills. They’ll be back to school next month and their mom doesn’t want them to forget what they learned last school year. The file folder book activities will be perfect. Thanks for sharing.
I love this activity to keep the kids mind going during the summer. It can be hard to keep the kids engaged with reading over the summer with all the other activities going on. I love this offer from Kellogg’s sounds like a great deal!
File folder games are a teacher’s dream. They are an effective use of time for students which offers and engaging, leveled activity that meets the learners needs. It’s always great to see parents working on these things at home because it definitely shows the child that education is a shared interest.
This is such an awesome idea! It is so nice to see a parent going above and beyond to help with their children’s education… in turn this helps with their confidence too! I love this idea and will be pinning it!
What a cute idea! I love using folders as a fun reading activity. #client
That is an awesome idea to get children interested in reading! Even better that it has a tie in with their favorite cereals. ;D I like the idea to make a file folder to use in conjunction with learning.