Kids love to collect things! Why not play off of that love and connect collections with books. I thought of this idea after reading about Mary Lee Hahn’s “Book Lover’s Notebook“ and “Read-Aloud Gallery“. I haven’t tried this yet, but I’m hoping some of you will and let me know how it goes! Here is how I imagine this working: After finishing a chapter book read-aloud, give each student a trading card-sized image of the book’s front cover. The cards could be slid into trading card page protectors or hole-punched and added to a loose-leaf ring.
Each time a new card is added, it can be used as a way to linger longer with a book and to talk about texts in connection with other texts. Questions that might be explored: “What other books that we have read this year have similar themes?” “What journey did the character go on? Was it an internal or external journey or both? Have characters from other books we have read aloud gone on similar journeys?” I imagine students laying out each of their cards and manipulating them as they look for connections across texts.
How to Create Book Cover Trading Cards:
Step 1: Go to Google Images and type the title of the book.
Step 2: Click on one of the images.
Step 3: Right-click on the image and “save image as”.
Step 4: Import the image in a PowerPoint template. Resize to 2″ x 3″.
