Recommending Books in Fourth Grade
In reading workshop this week, one of our lessons was structured as an inquiry. The inquiry question was...
"What systems and procedures can we establish to help us find books that we not only can read, but that we also want to read?"
The class broke into four different groups, with each group examining a different part of this question. One group discussed how to organize the library to help find books, another group focused on the systems for recommending books, a third group considered how the community and school could recommend books, and the last group brainstormed ways to get more new books.
As the students shared their chart paper of ideas, one idea especially intrigued me. The idea of creating a website for students to share book recommendations with one another. In the past, I've done the "write on a sticky note why you liked this book and place it on the inside cover." My classroom never had great success with this method. Sticky notes got lost, students didn't think to open the cover of a book they were thinking about reading, and not all students actually wanted to do this.
As I became more excited about this online book recommendation system, I immediately asked my students what they thought about creating a blog where they could write their own book recommendations online. Eyes lit up with excitement as they nodded their heads and agreed that they thought this was a great idea as well.
Later that day, I worked on creating a blog through Weebly. I made a new account that students can access and create book recommendation blog posts. I'm excited to see where this blog goes. It is something I have never done before, but I am anxious to see my students as real life bloggers.
While we are just getting started, check out our book recommendation blog and see all the progress we will be making in the future!
