Book Recommendations on the Tree (Freebie)

Hey everyone! It's Stephanie from The Marvelous Middle. Next week marks the beginning of the holiday season and my favorite time of the year. Every year I put up a tree in my classroom and every year I struggle with using the same old decorations to trim my classroom tree. So this year, I came up with a way to combine my love of YA books with my love of Christmas. I created an ornament that gets my students involved in the decorating and gives them a voice to recommend books to their classmates. I always love hearing my students talk among themselves about great books they have read during SSR and I often eavesdrop on their conversations about the newest book their classmates should checkout. Yes, my students still ask for my opinion but it isn't the only opinion they seek out. They look to their classmates for book advice. This craftivity gives my students one more way to persuade their fellow classmates to read a book they found amazing, incredibly, or totally awesome. 

Here is one student's finished ornament that I will be laminating and getting ready to trim the tree next week.

The ornament looked like this before it was folded and glued together:

During this activity, the students chose a book to recommend and then decorated the cover of the book on the ornament, including the title, author, and book cover decoration. On the other side, they had to explain why the book they chose was a "gift" to read. The expectation was to pull in the other students by giving them just enough to prompt them to read it for themselves.

If you would like to try this in your own classroom, click here to go to this freebie in my TPT store.

I hope you enjoy this activity as much as my middle schoolers have. Happy Holidays and enjoy trimming your classroom tree.