Book Hunt

After searching for ways to get my students excited about reading, I found something that I like to call a book hunt.  I saw where another teacher did this and I kind of modified it to fit my classroom better.
When setting up our interactive notebooks, we created a page called our "Reading Wish List."  This is where we list the title and author of books we want to read.

One of the first days of school when students did not have a book yet because they had not been to the library, we did the book hunt.

Planning for the Book Hunt
The data that I used to guide my book hunt was "Getting to Know You" sheets that my students did the first day.  After sifting through the "Getting To Know You" information about each student, I compiled lists of topics that they liked.  Our librarian helped me find some of the latest books from our library and I used books from my personal library as well. I spread the books out and put one book at each seat in my classroom, even seats where no students sat.

Implementing the Book Hunt During Class
I asked students to get out their notebooks and turn to the wish list page.  I played music and allowed students to walk around the room and kind of look over the books until they found a place they'd like to sit down and spend more time with the book.  When I stopped the music, students were to sit down at the table they were in front of.  I set a timer for 2 minutes and students had 2 minutes with the book.  I told them to read the front and back covers, read the inside flaps, read some of the chapters, or even begin reading the book! Once the timer dinged, I would play the music again and students would write down the title and author of the book in their Reading Wish List if it was something they were interested in reading later.  Some students didn't even want to leave the table where they were sitting when the bell rang to switch.  We did this routine about 4-5 times and they kids really LOVED it!
In fact, see the post-it on the picture? Several kids wanted to take the book with them, but I had them put post-its on them with their name so they could come back and get it at the end of the day so other kids could look at that book as well.  And those kids came back to get their books, too!

Books on the tables for our
book hunt.