Previewing the Georgia Children's Book Award Nominees with Aurasma

Each spring, my fourth, fifth, and sixth graders eagerly anticipate the announcement of next year's Georgia Children's Book Award nominees. I love how my students swap copies of the books, discuss their favorite parts, and debate the best titles. To generate excitement for next year's books and promote the titles for summer reading, I created a preview activity.

I used cover images as the trigger images. For the overlays, I used book trailers that I created or downloaded from You Tube. Using Aurasma Studio, I combined the trigger images and overlays into auras so that when the book covers are scanned, the trailer appears and plays. To prepare the media center for this activity, I placed a copy of each title on book stands around the media center. I also created and copied a list of the books.

When students arrived in the media center, we talked about how movie trailers get us excited about movies that are coming out soon. I told them that they would be viewing book trailers that would tell them about next year's Georgia Children's Book Award nominees. I gave each student a pencil and list of books to make notes on. Students shared iPads in pairs. They were then encouraged to scan the book covers and watch the previews for as many books as time allowed. Before students left, we met again as a whole group where students shared the books they were most excited about and why. My students are now anxious to being reading next year's book list!