QR Codes and Book Talks

One of my 6th grade reading teachers requested a way to get some more books in the kids' hands before we went on winter break. The 6th grade kiddos have LOVED our first chapter Friday videos, so we talked about trying to do something with an audio/visual component. Now that YouTube is unblocked for our students, I went ahead and created QR codes for various book talks, trailers, and summaries that I could find online. Then, I printed the QR code next to a picture of the book's cover and hung them in an unused hallway by the library. Kids grabbed iPads, headphones, and were able to listen to the book trailers at their leisure. These books were pulled and on a cart, along with a laptop and scanner, so we could check books out as soon as kids picked one they liked. I tried to use books that we either had multiple copies of already (past state award nominees) OR were ones that didn't usually get a lot of traffic. 

Overall, it was a huge success and the kids and the teacher enjoyed it. The other sixth grade teacher thinks she will do this activity after winter break as a jumpstart for 2nd semester. I have all of the images and QR codes saved in Google Drive and they are organized by genre, which is how the library is set up. I'm excited to try this again!