Traveling Class Mascot with Traveling Journal | Classroom Community Builder

Item description

Encourage your students to read, write and get outside over the weekend by sending them home with your traveling class “pet” or mascot.

This resource includes everything you need to implement sending home a class mascot with your students this year. There is a letter to parents explaining the project, a template for students to write on, rules and reminders for your students while they are looking after the mascot, and a binder/bulletin board cover for your students’ work. There are also picture examples of each page that are laid out for parents, so they know what your exact expectation is.

This resource is also editable so that you can customize it with your own picture and name. The editable pages are the cover (two font options), the parent letter, and the writing pages for the students.

Project Description:

This project for students allows students to take home your class mascot for the weekend and then record all about it and share with the class. This is a great way to build classroom community, as while as a fun way to get families involved in students’ work. Students then write all about their adventures, edit their writing and add photos. I put all finished work in sheet protectors in a binder, that I keep year after year so that students can look through it. I usually do not send home the entire binder worth of student work, just in case it gets misplaced. However, this is always an option too so parents can see what other families have done and what the norm is.

As the teacher, I usually will model the first weekend so that students know exactly what to expect. I also allow parents the opportunity to request a weekend with Kelp if they are doing something fun or exciting, so we can hear all about it.

This activity pairs perfectly with the book, Not Quite Narwhal. We use Kelp as our class mascot, as this book is all about his adventures between the land and the sea and being happy in both places. I start by reading this book to my students, amping them up about the project, and then I pick a strong writer to go first. I give students 2-3 days after the weekend to work on their writing, and then I give them 10 minutes during our morning meeting to share about it. I display this weeks work, and then add it to our class binder after the next student brings in their work.

There is also a generic version of this resource that just says “class mascot” as well as some other animals, should you have a different chosen class mascot. Looking for a mascot that you don’t see?

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