The Readers Bistro

Are you like me and looking for any reason to find an excuse to play George Harrison or Cat Stevens  greatest hits in the classroom? Are you considering my a job at Starbucks when your retire or even starting opening your own Bistro when you retire? Well you can get the best of both worlds in your very own classroom by hosting a Readers Bistro.

A Readers Bistro is basically another fun, and creative way to conduct book talks in your classroom. The "Menu" in your Bistro are the questions your students should cover when summarizing their books for their peers. The "Comment Card" is where the students who listened to the book talk retell you what they heard about the book. In our, package we have provided you with two different options and ways to use this fun idea in your classroom. Having used this activity in class before we can tell you that it's a monthly book talk that your students will look forward to.

So enjoy the Bistro!

Change Up Those Book Talks

There are lots of ways to change up the mundane activities that we do in the classroom. One of those things that we often do that needs to be thrown a curve ball is how we conduct book talks. You remember those nice 2 minute book talks when a student gets up front of the room and sounds as boring as the teacher from Ferris Buller while trying to convince, their peers to really read this book. Yeah good-luck on that job and if it works you are going to be a real estate mogul!

The front of the bookmark

The back of the bookmark

Instead of having a student just retell about the book why not tap into their creativity and have them create a bookmark about the book they just read. On the front of the bookmark have them come up with a creative hook that represents the book they just read. On the back they can write a quick summary of the book and why they enjoyed it. Here is an example of a bookmark done for the classic Roald Dahl book "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".

For the whole package with templates and rubric take the Great Glass Elevator over to our site on TPT.