Our grade school does a Family Reading Night once a semester. It's run by the grade school teachers who do an amazing job getting the parents in by also hosting the 7th grade wax museum and 8th grade science fair. We've also started getting my high school students involved through being guest readers and promoting our summer library program. It's a community event. We also host a book fair during this time when parents can buy books from the Scholastic program. They have a great program and good books, but the high school, and certainly adult selections, are lacking.
So I had an idea... We're trying to promote literacy for the entire community here, right? And I have not only older books I'm culling from my stacks but also books that have been donated that are much more interesting for an adult audience than my students, why not set up a table and make these books available to the parents for free? So that's what we did this year. My high school students and I set up a table where we displayed their literacy research for the parents and we placed the available books in with the displays. We had four large boxes of books and distributed an entire box that night. A week later, we had parent-teacher conferences. Again I set up a table of books and we distributed another entire box. I had parents commenting on what a nice idea it was and that they had books at home they could contribute. They were so excited to have these books. I loved seeing their eyes light up, the same way my students' do when they get a good book in their hands. Hmm... ok, so how can I keep this going?
My next plan is to host a community book swap. We'll collect as many books as we can from local thrift stores or community partners and invite the community in to swap books for all ages. Now to find the right time to do it.
Have any of you hosted school book swaps? Any suggestions or ideas for me?
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