Use creativity to help students share great books. In this activity, students create "sundaes" that describe their books. The posters can be posted in the classroom as the favorite sundaes of the week.
Teachers can direct students to create graphic posters to "advertise" good books that other students are reading. The creative reader response helps students to organize the book information to share with the other students. These posters are also another creative book report idea that can assess student understanding of the novel.
The posters can be assigned to be displayed on a calendar or on a schedule so that there can be five to ten top sundae "flavors" of the week. Each week five to ten new posters can be displayed in the classroom.
Items Needed: student favorite novels, diplay calendar, book sundae template, markers and colored pencils
Instructions to Create a Book Sundae Template
- At the top the author and book title should be listed. A brief description of why the student likes the book should be next.
- The cherry shape on top should be the student's rating of a book. A rating of five for the best and one for the worst is great.
- A whipped cream shape can tell the theme. A theme can be the message or the moral of the story from the book
- The ice cream will be in the shape of a pyramid. The top circle will give the climax of the story. The climax is the turning point of the story.
- The second row of ice cream has two circles. Each of those can list a conflict or problem that the main characters face in the story. Conflicts genrally happen before the climax in the plot of the story.
- The third row of ice cream has three circles. Each of those can list a main character and brief description.
- The bowl is on the bottom. It lists the setting. The setting is time and place of the story.
Directing Students to Create Book Sundaes
When students have finished reading their novels, have them make the book sundae. Depending on the age of the students, words can be placed in the "sundae shapes" to explain what everything represents. After all of the shapes on the sundae template have been filled in with information from their novel, students need to add color.
The best part of this lesson is that the sundaes are graphic representations of the novels that they like. This student created art can help other students in the room choose novels.