Summer Reading and Beyond!

LII had a great link to summer reading. I found two sights called BookHive.org and Bookadventure.org. At BookHive Children from K-6 can find books, listen to a story, discover fun activities. At BookAdventure teachers can set up their classrooms and offer quizzes and incentives to students.
BookHive is produced by The Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg Counties out of North Carolina. At this site, students can find books by author/illustrator or title. They can also do an advanced search and find a book by reviewer. Students can enter reviews for books and read what other students have written about a book. All of the books can then be reserved at the library because this site is linked into the online catalog. Storytellers have posted short videos that students can listen to and watch using realplayer. They can also find books that are similar to the stories they heard. The fun activities are discussion questions, trivia questions on popular books, coloring pages and book lists. You can even create your own booklist. The bookhive even has a spot for parents. Parents can get additional information about the books to help when working with children. The only thing I did not like about the site was it only goes up to 6th grade!
Then I found out that the library also produces a site for students from 6th - 12th grade at www.libraryloft.org. This site is way cool. It has a poll, pictures from flickr, a second life project, youtube videos produced by patrons, a reading guide link, and a link to their summer reading club. The summer reading club is easy to use and students can get $10 worth of fines waived just for registering! The record keeping can be done online and printed out to bring in. You do have to be a library card holder if you want to win prizes. The library even offers a Guys Read bookclub for middle school boys. This is hosted by local professionals. How awesomely fantastic!
Bookadventure is a cool site if you want an alternative to AR. They offer quizzes on many books and simple prizes. The prizes are books, bookmarks, highlight magazine, and a candy bar. Teachers can even design their own prize levels and certificates. You sign up, a lengthy process, and enter your students. The easiest way is to enter an empty class. Students then sign in, using their first name and last initial. They must know the class name and the teacher's last name. YOu can then view what tests they take and how they score. Students can also see how many points they have earned. The site also links teachers to booklists, articles and helpful websites. This would be a cool way to to encourage students to read over summer. Offer prizes for how many points they bring in during the first week back to school. I hope I remember this next year!!!!

Oh what fun!