Not Just a Book Fair: It's a Life Event

This past week I've been running my Scholastic Book Fair and I have two more days of it this week. When Book Fair comes, I go ALL out.

Why? People ask me that question all the time. It's a lot of work and it takes a lot of energy and a lot of time.

Why not? Mostly though, I do it because it is SO very hard to get middle school kids to care. You have to give them something to be excited about. Our kiddos look forward to the Book Fair each year and really get into it.

For Book Fair I decorate like crazy based on the theme, set up Maker Space stations tied to the theme, play music, tag the books for teacher recommendations and for which categories the books count towards in our 20 Book Challenge, and I dress in costume every single day.

When I first started doing Book Fairs, I didn't have stations but I was doing all the other stuff. We set up the stations for a family night and then no one came. We were so bummed that we kept them up for the classes coming in the next day and the kids LOVED it! From then on, stations became necessary. It doesn't hurt that it helps my sales and helps teachers feel better about bringing their classes to me for the Book Fair.

Sometimes Scholastic has great themes and sometimes, the themes either aren't suited well for our population, for middle school, or for our school in general. Last fall the theme was Southwestern. Well, my whole school is decorated like that and our kids wouldn't have cared about that theme so I chose a fiesta theme from a few years back. This fall their theme was unicorns and fairies and while that is super cute for elementary school, I didn't know if my middle schoolers would go for it. I polled them during orientation to see how they felt about it and they were not into it. Instead, I went with a sports theme for this year's Book Fair and the kids are LOVING it!

I always decorate the circulation desk in a big way (pirate ship, giant tent, enormous taco filled with books, and now a concession stand). We also have a headless baby who always comes to the Book Fair. We used her to be a pirate the first year and the kids loved her so much that I just dress her up and put her out each year. She's also been a fisherman girl, a fiesta girl, and now she's a tball player. I hang decorations from the ceiling in the actual fair part, put decorations on the tables with the books, and then I try to put decorations on the walls of the media center where I can.

The stations are a mix of standards-based Maker Space activities, writing activities, and things that are just plain fun. In the past we've had building challenges, color sheets, puzzles, games such as tic-tac-toss, friendship bracelet making stations, story building stations, etc. Last year the hit of the Book Fair was making paper bag ponchos out of grocery bags from Publix. This year my stations are a Lego building challenge to build something sports related, a structure building challenge to build a structure that supports a basketball, tailgate toss (corn hole), jersey design station, and pin the football on the goal (a version of pin the tail on the donkey), and an Athletes Give Back station to decorate a whale for the Vineyard Vines #whalesforacause campaign. It's been awesome to help my students participate in some community service.

I schedule all the classes to come in with their Language Arts class and if they are in Intensive Reading they come with those classes as well. I schedule a class for the first half of the class period and another class for the last half of the same class period. On early release days I schedule only one class because there just isn't enough time. We also keep the Book Fair open before school and during all the lunches. Everyone has an opportunity come as many times as they want or need to.

Book Fair takes a lot out of me but it's such a good thing for our school and our kids. I'm sure there are other ways to do Book Fairs and I know a lot of schools (elementary schools especially) who make a lot more than I do during their Book Fair without all the fuss but I pride myself on giving my best to these kids and this is my best so that's what I do. I hope this post gives you some good ideas for things you can try at your Book Fair if you are looking for a way to change things up.