Library Contest

Be the first to read it contest!

This week I started a new contest in the library. I am raffling off the chance to be the first person to read the newest (to our library) I Survived books. These books include:

• I Survived #10: I Survived the Destruction of Pompeii, AD
• I Survived #9: I Survived the Nazi Invasion, 1944 
• I Survived #7: I Survived the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863

The way I introduced the contest was a great way to get the kids excited about these books.  First, I have to say that the kids at my school love the I Survived series (mostly the boys), therefore it didn't take much to get the kids excited about these new books. I added these books into circulation this way because I feared for my life! Do you know what would have happened to me if I placed these books on my "New Books" shelf and I was anywhere near that shelf?! I probably would have been trampled! 

When the upper graders came into the library this week, I explained to them the rules. I told them that if they wanted to enter the contest, they had to write their name and room number on a slip of paper and place it into the box that corresponded to the book that they wanted to read. If they wanted to improve their chances of getting any one of the books, they could place their name in all three boxes. But they could only place one slip per box. One small detail that I forgot to mention was that they could enter the contest anytime during their library time, so when I released them to check out books, a horde of kids ran to the desk! I had to quickly get out of the was because I could have been killed! :)  

How did I make the boxes for the contest? I am a scrapbooker, so I never throw things away. You never know when you might be able to use them. Every time we have a Scholastic book fair, we get these cool boxes for the "All for Books" program. Once the bookfair is over, they still look pretty good, so I don't throw them away. I placed a piece of construction paper to cover the front window and most of the box. Knowing that the box was going to be against something, I didn't even bother to cover the whole box. I then went into Destiny, looked up the books and printed the cover of each book on the color printer. Once that was done, I taped the printout onto the book and voila!  

The last thing I did was grab several books from the shelves that were related to each one of the books and placed them next to the boxes. Now I was ready to present the books. When the students came into the library, after explaining the contest, I read the first chapter of all three books. You should have seen their faces! I also explained to them that I was going to choose the winners in two weeks but if they couldn't wait, I had other books they would be able to check out today. The books I had pulled were about Pompeii, volcanoes, Nazi invasion related, Gettysburg and the civil war. The kids were very excited and did check out some of the books I had pulled.










As you can see, the kids were very eager to sign up. It was very cool!

Most of the kids wanted to get their name in!                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
 Even the girls were entering their names into the contest!
This week I will mentioned the contest again for the kids that were absent last week and next week I will pick the winners. I can't wait!