One thing a small group worked on was book trailers. I'm sure you have heard of them before, they are a great way to get out of the normal book report. I will say that by working with these students on the trailers you could really tell that they had read the books and understood them!
For two weeks prior the students had to pick a chapter book that was appropriate for their reading level. They had two weeks to complete the book, and during those two weeks they had to complete their reading logs based on those books. Click here to get the reading log!
Once we began the actual book trailers the students really took over and got creative! I chose to use a free app/website Animoto. The free version is great! My teaching partner had each student set up their own free version. I actually liked it so much that I purchased the year plan, and made a class account.
The kids that made the book trailers have now become my Animoto experts, and we have done a few other quick projects with them leading the "production" portion. It's so much fun!
I also created a small section in our library with QR codes allowing students to scan and watch the videos.
Here is our poster:
And finally our videos:
