Every year at Christmas time I hold a book exchange in my classroom. I send home a note about two weeks before the event. Basically this is what I would say.
Purchase a new book on the grade level I am teaching and GENDER NEUTRAL between $5.00 to $8.00.
Wrap the book in gift wrap (No Christmas paper) [need to be aware of other students who do not celebrate Christmas]
Do not write your child's name in the book or on the gift wrap.
Send in the book by (date)
I will keep track of who sent in a book and only those who do will participate. (I have never had someone left out.
On the day of the exchange I usually read Gingerbread Baby. I have the students sit in a large circle holding one of the wrapped books. I explain that as I read the story when they hear the phrase Gingerbread Baby they are to pass the book to the person on their right. When the story is over what ever book they are holding is theirs to keep. If for some reason they don't like the book they received, then I give each student ONE opportunity to exchange their book with someone else who wants to exchange.
Hi! There's nothing better than books for the kids, is there? We have so many parents willing to donate used books that we have a 50 cent book sale for all the students. We then use that money to issue vouchers to all of the kids for the book fair, in addition to the $3 per child we have budgeted. So the kids actually benefit twice - once from the 50 cent sale (even hardcovers) and again from the free books they get from the book fair. We actually do this sale twice a year - once for the kids and once for the library. We usually are able to donate over $500 worth of books to the library (because we use the money from the sale when we do our Scholastic book fair and those books are able to be purchased for 40-60% off the list price).
Our book swaps were done similar to dlf's. A couple of weeks before the swap we sent home a flyer announcing it and letting people know that they could begin sending gently used books to school. The teachers kept track of how many books each student brought in(we set a limit of 5 for the exchange but they could "donate" extras for children who wanted to participate but didn't have a book). We also supplemented our inventory by purchasing "bruised books" from Scholastic. They cost us $1 each and we could order by grade level. We started doing this because we never seemed to have enough books for the older kids.
The day of the exchange, the books were collected from the classrooms and sorted by reading level on tables in a common area. The children could come during recesses or whenever their teacher let them. We had a list of those who brought early, and the children who brought their books that day simply gave them to a volunteer who made sure they exchanged for the same number of books. You could use vouchers for this if you want. The volunteers then sorted and placed books on the tables as they came in.
We had very generous parents who frequently sent extra books, so there was always a huge selection. This did present a problem with storage, so after the last exchange for the year, I would leave the books out until the next day and let teachers take any they wanted for their classroom libraries. The children, teachers and parents loved this event! Not everyone can afford to participate in our book fairs, so this was a great way for all the children to be able to get some new reading material to enjoy. We even included the adults in one of the exchanges we did in conjunction with a family night! We also did a once a year book giveaway, so that every student could come to the book fair and select a free book($5 or less).
Hi Beth--we've done one for a few years now. We asked for donations to get the inventory started and then we ordered for and paid for a book cart that we could station in the school activity room. Books are arranged according to difficulty and basically the last thursday and friday of the month are swap days. We set up from 8:30 to 9:00 and children can come in and swap out their books (K-2 one day, 3-5 the next). A flier goes home the week before and an announcement is made the day of. The only stipulation we make is that there must be a "like book" exchange (i.e. you take a chapter book, you give a chapter book) so our inventory doesn't become to swayed in one way or another. Good Luck
