Pete the Cat Party

Hi friends!

You may remember that I had a reward system to encourage classes to return their library books. I had a picture of Pete the Cat, and we covered a part of Pete each time the whole class returned their books on time. You can read more about that on this post.

Well, I had one class FINALLY earn their Pete the Cat surprise on the very last book return of the year! The other classes had made a gingerbread Pete the Cat ornament months ago, but that was not a great choice for June. So we had a Pete the Cat party!

Here's what we did. We had already read Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes together. And the students had been singing Pete's song all year long. So....

I made a Pete the Cat mask for every student in the class. Just a simple cat face, with the eyes cut out, copied onto blue card stock, with a craft stick hot glued to the chin, and a little Sharpie nose.

(If I had had more time with the class, we would have personalized the mask with eyelashes and whiskers.)

I laid out colorful vinyl tablecloths in a path around the library ending with a silver one. These are tablecloths I've saved from past Scholastic Book Fairs, but you can also find them at the Dollar Tree.

When the students arrived, they held up their mask, and we acted out the story of Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by walking through each of the tablecloth puddles.

When we arrived at each puddle (tablecloth), I asked the students, "what food is that color?" So the yellow tablecloth was a puddle of chicken noodle soup, and the green tablecloth was a puddle of avocado! Then we sang each chorus together, for each different color.

The final, silver tablecloth was the puddle of water that washed our shoes clean again.  I gave them one of the Pete the Cat bookmarks that I'd ordered from the ALA store. And of course I let them take their Pete masks home.

That was sooo much fun! Not much expense or preparation time either! I know that when these students come back for first grade in August, they will still remember the fun times we shared, walking through the library, singing, and stepping in tablecloth puddles. I hope this will add another happy memory to build a love of books and reading into their lives.

And I hope that you, too, have the opportunity to celebrate reading with your students!