Celebrating Our Favorite Books (Part 1)

As the end of the year draws near, students are tired and teachers are tired. We are energizing our reading workshop by celebrating our favorite books! Here is a how we are working towards awarding our favorites in my classroom...

Several weeks ago I had students nominate their favorite books of the year in several categories:

1) Picture Books

2) Chapter Books

3) Nonfiction Books

4) Graphic Novels

5) Poetry

We then created top 10 lists from each category. I revealed the nominated book lists one day at a time and started with picture books and poetry (because I knew the kids were highly anticipating the top ten lists for graphic novels and chapter books). Each day we created a drumroll and then revealed the list from behind the projector screen. It was hilarious and encouraging to watch them cheer, jump up and down, and scream out their favorite titles that made the lists.

Almost all 80 of my students have read quite a few of the books on these lists. If I had required them to read them, they probably wouldn't have, but they pass the most popular titles from hand-to-hand. Some of them are looking a little shabby (more recently a few titles have even gone missing), but I can't complain if they are being read and loved by so many...

The next step was to get the kids reading these books. We decided as a group that it would only be fair if students who voted for the books had read a majority of the books. So for each category we set a goal that needed to be reached in order to vote. I pulled those books out of my library and set them in bins on my back table, one bin for each category. I even had to make a trip to Half Price Books to see if I could find more copies of some of the nominated titles. Students have been reading, reading, reading...

We created this chart to paste in their journals so they can track the books they've read.

Last Friday I told each class period they have 1 more week to read as many of the nominated books as possible. This Friday we will vote! The following week we will celebrate all we have read during the year AND the books that recieve our 4th grade book awards. I will be asking the kids to name the awards and placing a special sticker on the winners for next year's students to enjoy. I will post more information soon from our celebration!