Year 3 - Day 25 - January 25

One thing I like to do once in awhile when I know my kids are going to need a book for a class project is a lesson called "speed dating." Since they're 5th graders, I call it "hot potato" but it will always be "speed dating" in my brain since that's what it was called when I first read about it.

Each of the 6 tables gets a large stack of books about the theme, topic, genre, etc. (Whatever the teachers need them to leave with.) I make sure to have as many boy books as possible, since that's harder, and then fill in with girl books. When I was pulling them off the shelves, I made piles of "leaning towards boys" and "other." Then I sorted each of those big piles into 6 smaller ones. I try my best to spread out a variety of reading levels, too.

I put the online stopwatch up on the screen and they have 1 minute at a time to get to know a random book from their table. Pick it up, read the back, read the inside flap, read the summary, read the first page, heck they can even read the middle or the last page if they're one of those crazy readers that likes to know the end first. Just one minute. At the end of the minute, they write the title down on their scrap paper if it seems like a book that would work. They do this 3 times at each table and then we rotate between all the tables. They get to see 18 books of their choice before making a selection to take home.

I've been doing this during my 5th grade class for the past week. I wish I had a hundred more books of historical fiction (this week's selections) because the "WOOHOO's" die down after the first few classes. I do set up a computer with the county library's catalog so that we can search for titles if someone grabs my only copy of a book and a kid is dying for it. That has been helpful as well.

There are this many books left, and only 25 more kids to choose. I hope a bunch of them can get what they need.