TBA Freebie Friday - Book Exchange and Response Journal Labels

I'm a day late but still wanted to hook up with TBA for Freebie Friday!  In my back to school letter to my students I asked them to bring in up to 3 books for a class book exchange.  I have done this in the past at the beginning of the school year, and it's always been a success.  A new twist to the book exchange this year was that I asked my third graders to put together a short commercial about one of the books they were donating.  The book commercial direction sheet can was based on suggestions from Beth Newingham on book commercials.

The students started bringing in their books on Open House night over a week ago, and we started school this past Tuesday.  In prepping for the book commercials I explained the process, and also showed a clip from the end of a Reading Rainbow episode where the kids recommend books.  The book commercials were shared on Friday.

These are the books we had received by Thursday afternoon. I also added some "well-used" books from the classroom.

I could tell the third graders were nervous as they shared the book commercials, but they really did an awesome job.  While they were sharing I listed the books on my Interwrite Board, and the students wrote down the name of their favorites on a page in their Reading Response Journals entitled "Books I Want to Read".  Afterwards they got to pick 2 books from the activity to add to their book boxes.  I did have 2 people who were not prepared (even after talking about it all week), and someone who was upset that they didn't get the book they really wanted, but overall it was a very positive reading activity. 

You can find my Reading Response Journal labels here for free, too!