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Susan, about your request for literacy activities: I've been waiting for Anne Hunt to talk about the book exchange she got going in her kindergarten last year, but if she won't tell, I will . . . I may have the details wrong, so Anne, correct me if I do. But as I understand it, the kids in her class took books home to read with their parents (more likely, to have their parents read to them.) Accompanying each book was a notebook in which parent & child were to write their reactions to the book -- basically telling what they did or didn't like about it. These notbeook entries then went home with the next kid who took the book home. So parents & kids not only got to read the books, they got to read what other people thought about it, too. I think that activity promotes about a zillion different things having to do with literacy. It gets the parents and children thinking and talking about the book they just read; it gets people writing; it embeds the reading of the next book into several ongoing conversations (the one between each parent and child as they think about how _this_ book compares with the last one, and the one between the people in the class who've read this book, to name two); and it dramatizes the fact that reading, writing, and having opinions about books is something _everybody_ can do & is entitled to do. I thought it was a terrific idea. I keep trying to figure out ways to suggest it to my daughter's kindergarten teacher. So, Anne, how did it work out in practice? Marcy Bauman UM-Dearborn