Flipping for Books

Elementary Booktrailers

News segment in the mornign will include booktrailers to increase student interest in reading and increase literacy.

Goal: To help the students understand how to use technology in a menaingful matter. Students will also learn how to use persuasion to get others to read a book. Students will summarize a book and identify the story elements.


Time Span (10 days- 40 mins. each).

English/Language Arts
•Retell a story in sequence including main idea and important supporting details
•Make statements about how previous reading and life experiences relate to information read in texts.
•Demonstrate understanding of information in texts by making simple inferences about information in texts
•Adjust speaking tone and volume to suit purpose, audience, and setting
•Tell and retell stories with supportive facts and details from the story
•Deliver informal presentations that demonstrate an understanding of a topic
•Give oral responses, including giving explanations and reports
•Compare ideas from a wide variety of media
•Discuss classroom procedures and rules and generate ideas for new procedures and rules
•Identify the role of discussion leader, contributor, and active listener
•Use technology to publish a variety of works, including simple research reports and book summaries

Lesson Plan:

Discuss the meaning of a booktrailer and watch some sample movie trailers. Discuss how the movie trailers are shown as previews. Ask students why a booktrailer may be beneficial. Review the morning newscast and what it includes.

Students choose one of their favorite books and create a short summary of the book.
Go over how to begin a booktrailer.
Discuss how to get students interested in reading the book. Have students develop a probling question to leave others in suspense.
Have students create a script.

Introduce an animation program and do some training sessions practicing with the software.
Have the students record them reading their scripts and import the voice recording.
Have students put animations and pictures with their words to create short, animated booktrailers.

Have students preview the booktrailers and determine if any changes need to be made and if so make the changes.

Have students publish the booktrailers to the school website.
Have students edit the booktrailers into the morning newscast videos.

Discuss what improvements could be made to the lesson the next time and what else could they do to include on the webpage and the morning newscast.