Exciting new story featuring
famous basketball handler and performer,
Sandy "Spin" Slade, will inspire students
for better health and fitness!

Our Newest Playbook® Story.....

How Sandy Got Her Spin!

Playbooks, Inc. is pleased to introduce this charming, funny, and motivating story, How Sandy Got Her Spin, based on and written by real-life, famous sports entertainer Sandy "Spin" Slade. Sandy has been a professional basketball handling performer for over 20 years. She has performed half-time shows for numerous NBA games across the country and other basketball events around the world. She also inspires students in school assemblies across America and encourages them to overcome their fears, learn from their mistakes, and never give up practicing!

As the story begins, it is a typical school morning, but when the principal, Mrs. Johanson, makes a special announcement about a surprise assembly program, everything changes. Students energetically file into the multi-purpose room, chattering about what or who might be involved in the exciting assembly. When a certain boy sees a woman sitting on stage with several basketballs, he's skeptical as to what a woman might teach him about basketball ... but when he sees what Sandy Spin can do, his only question is, "Can boys do that, too?" Meanwhile, another student resolves to overcome her fears and shyness and do something brave, like perform in front of an audience like Sandy Spin, while another learns the importance of hard work and determination while keeping a sense of humor all along the way.

The characters in this story make up a rapping basketball handling routine that readers actually get to perform in a group with a "mini-basketball" that comes with this story set. Also included in the story is a DVD with real footage of Sandy "Spin" Slade as she performs basketball tricks, talks about what motivated her career, and shares an important message with kids. The story supplement includes several basketball drills and exercises that make this complete story activity also a PE activity that meets several PE standards.

Read Across America: Celebrating
Dr. Suess' Creativity

Read Across America Day is March 2nd, and the event celebrating a love of reading often takes place during the whole month of March. There is a reason that Read Across America is on Dr. Seuss’ birthday!

The main purpose of Read Across America is to motivate children to read, and Dr. Seuss’ books do exactly that.  More than 222 million copies of Dr. Suess books have been sold, and they are translated into over 15 languages. He has won many awards, and on Publishers Weekly’s list of the 100 best-selling books of all time, 16 are by Dr. Seuss! What makes them so popular? More than anything else, it comes down to the fact that they are just so fun to read!  Dr. Seuss’ imagination and style draws readers in and keeps them coming back for more.

The rhyming verses are great for keeping kids attention and helping them learn the words. It is common for children to memorize Dr. Seuss books start to finish, yet they always want to read them again.

Similarly, Playbooks® Reader’s Theater stories are chosen first according to their fun factor! That is to say, the first criteria for every Playbook® is that it must be imaginative and captivating and will draw readers into the story.

Many Playbook® stories also use the rhyming technique. Our books are designed carefully to build reading fluency and comprehension with multi-leveled roles, but we also understand that in order for children to want to read, their interest must be piqued. At Playbooks® Reader’s Theater, we take fun seriously, as an essential component of reading instruction.

For your Read Across America celebration day, continue to integrate fun and reading as Dr. Suess did, by using Playbooks® Reader’s Theater in your classroom as an enjoyable and educational activity. For easy ordering and access, purchase Download Print versions of our stories here. These are color-coded scripts just like our bound books, but they are designed to be printed on a home or school printer on 8.5 x 11 paper with enough copies for your class.