4th Grade Book Buying Club

This fall I had an open spot in my schedule during our clubs, so I asked if I could start a book buying club for 4th graders.  I had seen the awesome results that Andy Plemmons at Barrow Elementary School in Georgia had gotten by having students help with book buying in the library and I wanted to give it a try.

Students at our school get a list of choices and I ended up with 15 students who wanted to try me out. They were so excited when I told them at our first meeting that they would get a chance to spend $500 of my library budget on books that they chose.  We talked about what types of books to order, how to look up reviews to see if the book was good, and how to budget our money.

After they came up with a list and adjusted and reviewed it, I placed the book order.  Today, they got to meet one final time to unpack the box, set up a display, and choose a book to share on the news with the school to show what we have been doing!  This has been so much fun for me and the students and I can't wait for my second group to start in February!!

3rd Grade Book Tasting

Third graders are getting a taste of some different genres in the library this week and next to encourage them to try something different.  So often I see students check out the same thing over and over, so we are trying something new!

I pulled stacks of easy chapter books for mystery, humor, realistic fiction, biography, fantasy, and action/adventure.  Each table was a different genre.  I created a bookmark menu for them to write the title of the book they "tasted" at each table.  They got a few minutes at each table to choose a book, write the title, and read the first page or so to decide if they liked it or not.