Want to make your kid's summer reading come to life? A little pretending will do the trick: Her favorite book is being made into a major motion picture. The company wants to create a free-standing movie poster to entice viewers, and she's been hired as the designer.
What will draw people in? How will she capture the feeling evoked by an entire book on just one poster? Healthy for the imagination and fun to make, this project's sure to get her excited about her favorite summer book, again and again.
What You Need:
- Poster board or three-panel display board (foam core will work best)
- Paper
- Pencil
- Eraser
- Markers
- Ruler
- Magazines or images printed form the computer
- Letter stencils (optional)
What You Do:
- Encourage her to plan out her marquee on paper first. Ask her to sketch the location for the book's title and author, and then do a rough sketch demonstrating how she plans to lay out any art work or drawings.
- When she's ready to transfer her art work to the display board, ask her to write and draw very lightly in pencil. As she writes titles and authors, she may wish to use a ruler to draw lines, to keep her letters straight.
- Have her sketch a scene from the book, or some of the characters on the board. Urge her to make her chosen scene interesting and eye-catching, so that someone passing by would want to stop in and see the movie, or read the book. If she's reluctant to draw, she can consider making a collage instead, using images, words, and phrases from magazine images.
- Have her pretend that she's a book critic. How would she review the book? If she needs some inspiration, check out some young adult book reviews online. Ask her to add her own review of the book to the display, making sure to include a rating.
- Next, have her color in her display with markers. Permanent markers work best on the foam display board. Have her consider adding special touches like glitter or making something three-dimensional, like a flower that stands out from the board.
- If you have friends and neighbors who also have summer reading, consider hosting a contest to see who can design the best movie poster. And if everyone's finished their books already, you might want to add a book swap element to this activity! Here's how to host your own book swap.
Looking for some captivating summer reading material? We've compiled our own list of the very best summer reading books—classified by grade, as well as more fun summer reading activities, here.
By Daniella Garran
Daniella K. Garran is a seventh grade social studies teacher who lives on Cape Cod. She has published several articles about project-based learning. She spends summers working as an assistant director of a camp on the Cape.
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