Part 2...10 Ways To Kick Off The New Year With Biblionasium...."GoodReads For Kids"!

We are in the second week of a new school year!  I am so excited to be back with our students and teachers. 

As I shared last week on my blog, one of the programs that we use to kick off back to school time every year is Biblionasium or as we like to call it...."GoodReads for Kids".

This year, I couldn't be more excited to share with my teachers and students that we now have the School-Wide Version of Biblionasium. This will offer a great value and opportunity to foster a culture of reading that permeates across grades and through the school community.  It will help us create an engaging and exciting reading culture with all students, and again one we will go back to year after year.

You can check out the recent Biblionasium blog post here on the NEW School-Wide version.

For the next three weeks, I will share 10 Ways To Kick Off The New Year With Biblionasium with the NEW school-wide version in a three-part blog post series. This is how we use it at Van Meter and I can't wait to share these ideas with you.

Last week, I shared the first 3 ways in this post and today, I am sharing 3 more!

4. Help students start a "want to read" list by recommending books to them. 

Our kids LOVE it when we recommend books to them through Biblionasium. It is a great way for us to use Biblionasium as a reading advocacy tool and for us to match up books with all of our readers. 

When they see the books we have recommended, they can determine if they'd like to add it to their Want To Read list or book shelf within Biblionasium. You can see above what that looks like. 

This is always a place to start when they are looking for something to read or even recommending books to others. 

5. Set up an easy reading challenge to jump start the reading activities.  

Within Biblionasium teachers, librarians and students can set up Reading Challenges. As we kick off the new school year, this is a fun way to encourage and celebrate reading with students.

I love starting with a Genre Challenge to get our students familiar and connected with lots of different types of genres as they read. 

6. Have students check out the reading badges and select a badge to earn by reading towards that goal. 

Yes! And let's talk about badges!      

                           

Our kids love the reading badges they can earn in Biblionasium.  There is a badge for so many different things including Recommendations, Friends, Number of Books, Types of Books, Special Events and more.

Once a badge is earned it will show up in My Awards so they can keep track of the badges they earn.

One that every student receives the first time they log into Biblionasium is the Biblionasium Honor Code Badge.

When all students sign up for Biblionasium, they read and agree to the Biblionasium Honor Code. 

This is the perfect thing to use for an important talk around digital citizenship as they become part of this digital reading community network. I love that it focuses on being honest, safe and kind, while having fun and reading. And just another great way to kick off the new school year! 

I hope you follow along over the next three weeks and in our Biblionasium back to school journey, as I know you will love to learn how you can create a safe and fun social reading community for your students, teachers and families too.