Gator's Adventures: A Lesson in Literacy and Community

This article describes a take‐home literacy project in which kindergartners took home books, a stuffed animal, a camera, and a shared writing activity to complete with their families. The children later shared their writing and experiences in school. The resulting written responses and photographs depicted a level of involvement with the families that was not expected. At the end of the year, the writings and photographs were collected and each child was given a book that included all of children's writings and photographs. These books became treasured keepsakes of their year in kindergarten and a wonderful artifact not only of reading and writing for relevant purposes but also of a meaningful home activity that became a community‐building project as well.