Story Webs: All you need for this game is a
ball of string and a story to share. Have your students sit in
a circle on the floor. One of the students gives the beginning
sentence of a familiar story. Then the student holds onto the
end of a ball of string and rolls the ball to another student,
who will give the next part of the story in sentence form. This
is repeated until the story has been told. Soon you'll have a
spider's web in your students' circle. Any story can be used for
variation, or new stories can be created with each student adding
a new idea!
Marlys Weiland, Alta Elementary, Alta, IA, Grade 1
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Have a "scavenger hunt" by dividing
the class into teams and giving each team a copy of the same book.
Have them find the page numbers of particular objects, events,
or people in the book. Give a reward to the winning team.
Lana Downing, Hanson Memorial School, Franklin, LA, Grade 6
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Reader's Bingo: Brainstorm 25 to 30 words that
deal with books and write them on the board. Give your students
9" x 12" newsprint and have them fold it into nine squares.
Then have the students write nine of the words from the board
into each of the squares on their sheet. Give them corn or candy
for markers. Randomly call off words from the board. When a student
has filled in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row, he/she
should call out, "Books." I give the winner a paperback
book. For variety, the teacher can play Reader's Bingo by giving
the definition of words rather than the words themselves.
Jean Haegen, Mattawan Elementary, Mattawan, Ml, Grade 4
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Book Charades: Divide your class into two teams.
Each team thinks up ten book titles, writes them on individual
pieces of paper, and puts them in a box. Team members take turns
drawing a title from the opponents' box and acting out the title
for their team. The teacher monitors the time (2- or 3-minute
maximum). The team with the lowest score wins. Students should
follow standard charade signs and gestures.
Helene Debelak, Birchwood School, Cleveland, OH, Grades 3-8
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Musical Books: Chairs are placed back-to-back
in a straight line, and the teacher places a book under each chair.
Every child then sits on a chair. The children march around the
chairs when the teacher starts the music. When the music stops
the children sit down and begin to read the book under the chair.
After a few minutes, the teacher starts the music again. After
the game, the teacher puts the books in a special box marked "Musical
Books" so that the children may later read the rest of the
story.
Mary Vandeyander, Jefferson Elementary, Newell, WV, Grade 2
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A "Win, Lose or Draw" Contest: Have
students list titles of books they have read on index cards. Place
the cards in a stack face down. Then divide the class into teams.
Give one of the team members a marker and ask him/her to take
a card from the top of the stack. Have the student draw pictures
or figures on a flip chart to describe the book title (words,
letters, or numbers cannot be used) and ask his/her teammates
to guess what the title is.
Theresa Deckard, Fountain Run Elementary, Fountain Run, KY, Grade
1
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A fun game our class came up with is "Will the Real
BOOK IT!® Reader Please Stand Up." We choose
a judge, a lawyer, three jurors and three defendants for each
round. Each defendant takes turns coming up to the witness stand,
while the other two defendants wait outside the classroom or where
they cannot hear the others' testimony. The lawyer asks questions
from a questionnaire that one of the defendants has filled out
on a book he/she has read. After each defendant has been questioned,
the three jurors vote on whom they feel really read the book and
give their answer to the judge. The defendants are then asked
to come back in and sit down. The judge counts the jurors' votes
and reads aloud the tally, and then asks, "Will the Real
BOOK IT! Reader Please Stand Up!" This has been a great incentive
in my classroom.
Lisa Lewis, Sacred Heart School, Terre Haute, IN, Grade 6
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Wheel of Pizza: Play this game like "Wheel
of Fortune." Spin the arrow on a cardboard pizza and use
book titles that the children have recently read as the phrases
to guess.
Julie Schwartz, Central School, Peru, IN, Special Education
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Children love to do puzzles. To help generate an interest in book
reports, my students make a "search and find"
on graph paper using for the words a book title, author's name,
main characters, setting, and any key words for events in the
book. These are mounted on construction paper and illustrated
with pencil sketches or markers. They can then be exchanged with
class members. If the "search and find" puzzles are
laminated, they can then be exchanged many times and kept from
year to year. These make excellent at-seat activites and motivators
to check out a variety of books.
Nancy Parker, Jefferson School, Arkansas City, KS, Grade 4
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Choose one child to be "It." (You might want to begin
with a child who is often last to be chosen.) Tape a paper
on the child's back that has the name of a well-known character
from a book written on it. Have the child stand in front
of the class and turn his/her back so the paper can be read by
the other students. (For non-readers, the child could step out
of the room while the teacher reveals the character to the class.)
The child who is "It" chooses children one at a time
to give clues as to the identity of the character, making a guess
after each clue. After a designated number of unsuccessfull guesses,
reveal the character. If the child who is "It" guesses
correctly before that number is reached, his/her turn is completed.
He/she then choses another player.
Sandra Newbury, Colony Elementary, London, KY, Grades 3-4
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Overhead Book Marker Charades:
This is based on the idea of Pictionary. On slips of paper, write
the names of titles, characters, events, places, or vocabulary
words from books the class has read. Divide the class into two
teams. A member of one of the teams draws a slip. Using the overhead
projector, he/she draws clues to help his/her team guess what
is on the slip. We have a time limit of one minute. If the team
does not guess what's on the slip, the other team has one chance
to guess it. The winning team is the one with the most correct
guesses at the end of the playing period.
Karen Beaubien, St. Raphael School, Garden City, MI, Grades 5-6
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Reading Treasure Hunt: Develop
a treasure hunt where students have to read to find prizes. To
do this, select different words, phrases, or passages from readers
and text books that can lead the students from one clue to the
next. For example, the first reading selection might give the
students a clue about the color of the prize, the second selection
might tell how big it is, etc. Each selection should come from
a different book. Perhaps the last word in each paragraph could
be a clue.
Tamara Gilbert, Dunnellon Elementary, Dunnellon, FL Grade 4
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Reading Bee: From stories in our
reader or from a class book that all students read, I think of
questions, such as who a particular character is, what a certain
vocabulary word means, what the main idea of a story is, how many
syllables a word has, etc. Then whoever is left standing from
having answered the most questions is the winner.
Nancy Danzeisen, St. Aloysius Gonzaga School, St. Louis, MO, Grade
3
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What's My Line: Have the students
pick out a character from a book. They should know the character
well enough to be able to answer yes-or-no questions about them.
The person who is "it" stands in front of the class
and answers the yes-or-no questions given to them by the other
students. A student who thinks he/she knows who the character
is can guess. If the student guesses wrong, he/she is out for
that session. Whoever guesses correctly gets to be "it."
Bonnie Hardy, St. Edward School, Jeffersontown, KY, Grade 4
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Duplicate a list of items that involves functional
reading. The students should find as many of the items
as possible and bring them to school. You can include both easy
and challenging items. Some examples are: a coupon, a road map,
a brochure, a recipe, a warning label, a menu, a receipt, and
a catalog. You can set a time limit to determine how many winners
there will be. When students bring all their items to school,
they should be able to name them, i.e. verify that they have found
the appropriate samples.
Susan Coyan, Arlington Heights Elementary, Los Angeles, CA, Grade
3
