From the Classroom: Book Recommendation Bookmarks

As a classroom teacher, I am always looking for new ways to reach readers. Here at From the Mixed-Up Files, our From the Classroom series has a wide-range of tools and book lists geared towards teachers and librarians. Some of my favorites include weekly read-alouds for First Chapter Friday, If You Like … posters, and End of Year Best Book Lists.

This month I’m excited to share something new I introduced in my fifth grade classroom this spring: book recommendation bookmarks. 

Book Recommendation Bookmarks

My fifth graders love bookmarks. Every time I attend a conference I make sure to scoop up any promotional bookmarks I can find for middle grade books. But, inevitably, we run through them in the month or two after I get back. 

So this year, I decided to try something new. 

Instead of using promotional bookmarks to introduce students to one new book, why not put together a collection of bookmarks that feature several books? By targeting titles in our classroom library, students have the opportunity to immediately seek out and read any titles that grab their attention. 

I printed these out four-to-a-page, giving a finished size of 2.5 inches by 7.5 inches, which made for a good, solid bookmark, and allowed me to feature six titles per category. I also used cardstock so that they would stand up to repeated use.

The bookmarks were a big hit. I keep them in a container near our book return basket so that students who have just finished a book can instantly find something new. Some of my voracious readers like to use the bookmarks like a checklist, keeping track of which books they’ve read. Other students spend time browsing through the selections to get exactly the theme they want, and some students simply grab whichever one is on top and go with it!

Some of our most popular categories include novels in verse, magical school stories, survival stories, sport stories, and super sad stories. Some kids prefer picking books by genre, other kids prefer books by theme or vibe. It’s a great way to highlight a mix of older books and newer books. 

What categories of books would be most popular with the readers in your classroom?

Katie McEnaney

As an author, archaeologist, and 5th grade teacher, Katie McEnaney is always on a whirlwind hunt for the perfect artifact to illustrate a point and teach about the past. She even developed a virtual escape room for her students based on The Temple of Dendur exhibit at the MET – no suitcase required! Her stories have been featured in Little Thoughts Press and the middle grade anthology Clio’s Curious Dash Through Time. When she’s not traveling the world and geeking out over archaeological sites, you can find her at home in Wisconsin with her husband, son, and two very-demanding cats.