A Foxy Recommendation

Hello!
Happy Tuesday! Today, I am going to talk a little bit about my Foxy Book Recommendations plus a foxy recommendation. Get excited.

Last October, I presented at both OCRA and CRA reading conferences where I talked about the importance of sharing book recommendations with students. Lets think about this; why do we use pinterest, instagram, facebook, and twitter? We all want to share what we love, but even better, there are people out there who want to hear what we have to say. (hopefully-:) ).

I have created a Foxy Book Recommendation binder to go along with the new craze of the song, "What does the Fox Say...". How that song got popular, I will never know. I have to say-I like it too! Creating a tool for students to use that involves their interest will benefit them. Students thrive on knowing what their friends or the "popular" kids are reading. They all want to be in the know and read the book everyone is talking about. I have found a useful and practical way to share. Not only is it fun, but helps practice summary writing. This is a great activity for students to use after reading their own silent reading book or after a class read aloud.

Here is What You do:
Buy a 1.5 inch binder
I make my own tabs, by using white cardstock, laminating it, and then using laminated scrapbook scrap paper for tabs or, if you love Staples as much as I do, get dividers for 12 sections.
In the front of the binder, put "How to fill Out- A Foxy Book Review" and an example of "how to fill out a review" in a page protector. Then, in another page protector, put the genre finder pages back to back. Your work is almost done. :) I would model how to fill out a recommendation page.

What does the student do?:
Once students have finished a book, they may fill out a recommendation review. To your discretion, they can either turn it into to you to check first, or they can just fill  it out and then put under the corresponding genre tab. I have seen in other classes similar recommendation binders and the kids love it! I just love how it is connected to their world.

As far as how much? I would make each student do 2 a month, but would never put a limit. More the merrier! I suggest not allowing class anthology books because all the kids read those, and it does not support free reading.

Before you introduce the book review binder, I suggest hyping their interest with this fine gem. This book just came out in bookstores a few weeks ago and kids are dying to get their hands on this tale.

What Does the Fox Say?

If you haven't heard the song, go to you tube right now. I promise it is nothing grammy worthy, but the kids love it! The book is just plain unique. It talks about different sounds animals make and then goes into the famous words of the fox. The images in the book are really different and crazy. I would read this book with all ages. I am picturing using the book to introduce fantasy and realism, different cultures, creative writing, and more! Again, I would read this before introducing the Foxy Recommendation.