For the second half of the year, I wanted to do an activity that would encourage my students to reflect more about the “type” of books that they were checking out, with the hopes that they might explore some new genres instead of just checking out the same books or series over and over. I also wanted to provide them with a way to set some reading goals for the new year.
So I started playing around with different ways to set a New Year’s Resolution with them, and I came up with a foldable that will be super easy to make. Here’s what it looks like:
The first page has the year on the right hand side, and will be double-sided with the second page. Once you fold the page in half, you will see the year, and I’ll have the students cut underneath each number. When they do that, they’ll be able to see the information box underneath to fill out.
- 2 = Two books I have read this year and would recommend to my friends are…
- 0 = A genre that I have never read, but may give a try this year is…
- 1 = My favorite part about coming to the library is…
- 5 = Five books that friends have recommended for me to read this year are..
When we do this activity, I’ll spend a few minutes reviewing the different genres that we have in our library:
- Adventure
- Fantasy
- Historical Fiction
- Humor
- Mystery
- Scary/Horror
- Science Fiction
- Sports
- Realistic Fiction
- Non-Fiction
- Biography
Then, I’ll hand out the pages and go over each section. I’ll have the students meet with me to look at the history of books they have checked out so far this year (for the “2” and “0”). While they are waiting to meet with me, they will find 5 friends to get recommendations from, and work on filling out the other sections.
If you are interested in doing this activity with your students, you can get it at my store at TpT . I included pages for the next couple of years as well.
Update: 1/5/2015
I did this today with 3rd, 4th, and 5th and I have to say it was SO MUCH FUN! Most of the kids could remember at least 2 books they checked out, so I ended up only have to look up the history for a few students in each class. I ended up sitting at the tables with them for most of their library time as they filled out their resolutions, and had some fun conversations about books that they had read. It was so cute to see them walking around asking for recommendations from each other on what to read next! Some even came up to me to ask for a recommendation! This is definitely an activity I will continue to do next year!
What kind of plans will you be doing with your students after Winter Break? I’d love to hear your ideas!
Sandy
How long do your classes last? This sounds like a great idea, but I'm not sure I'd have time to meet with each individual kid as I only have the classes for 45 minutes each.
I'm part of the "Specials" rotation now so my library classes are 50 minutes long. We divided each grade level into 6 groups, so I basically get 1/6 of the kids for each library day. Usually that's about 15-20 kids, but some grades are less than that. If I don't get to all the students that day, I'll keep track of who I talk to and get the rest of the kids the following library class. I've also put in an email to our Destiny support to see if there's a faster way to print out a list of the books they have checked out so far this year instead of having to pull it up one at a time for each student. Unfortunately, I'm still waiting to hear back so will be going with my backup plan just in case. I also have established centers already in the library as well as Makerspaces so it'll be easier for me to manage calling them over and not worrying about what the other students are doing while I meet with one student.