4 Favorite Bookopolis Features that you might not know about

Students love to create custom book lists using our “My Book List” feature, but they might not know that they can share their lists via email. Click on the Share Book List button at the top of a Book List and add the email(s) of friends or family that would want to see your custom list. Many Bookopolis readers use this feature to create a “Wishlist” that they send to parents or grandparents. And, a true insider trick, you can also copy and paste the URL of your “My Book List” to share it. Learn more.

Student Activity Idea: Have students create a “My Book List” of books they love from their favorite genre or other topic area, and then share it with a friend or family member.

Educator Activity Idea: Create a “My Book List” of books around a specific theme or topic and share it with your students and families. For example, here’s a list of the Texas Bluebonnet award nominees that lots of Texas students read each year.

Motivate students to spend more time reading with a custom Reading Challenge for students in your class. Goal-setting combined with accountability lets students and educators track progress and encourages more reading. Create a challenge that is meaningful to your class and their reading needs. Learn more here.

Curriculum Activity Idea: Create a March Madness Reading Challenge by setting the number of books you want students to read during March. Have students add books to their “I Read It” shelf in Bookopolis and then write a book review. Print out book covers and student reviews, and place them on a “March Madness” wall where all students can see them. This can help inspire other students to pick up a book they know a classmate enjoyed.

Many teachers and librarians encourage students to read by setting a goal for students to read a certain number of books across multiple genres during the school year (e.g. Donalyn Miller’s 40 Book Challenge or modifications of this idea.) Our Genre Tracker feature lets students tag the Genre of each book they read, and then track the number of books read in a given time period across 11 genres. Educators can see this data for each student in their Teacher Dashboard: Genre Tracker Report. Learn more.

Curriculum Activity Idea: After creating a Bookopolis Reading Challenge – or one on your own – use the Genre Tracker feature in your Teacher Dashboard to monitor how many books each students has read during the Reading Challenge in each of these 11 genres: Adventure, Fables/Myths/Classics, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Mystery, Nonfiction – Biography, Nonfiction – Other, Poetry/Verse, Realistic Fiction, Sci-Fi/Dystopian, Other

Watching book trailers with your class are a great way to get students excited about a new book. Students can also make their own trailers after reading a book to solidify their comprehension and share their reading love with others.

Curriculum Activity Idea:
1. Encourage students to browse the latest book trailers on Bookopolis and add a book that looks good to their “Want to Read” list.
2. Have students make a trailer video of a book they completed, upload it YouTube, and send to us to post on Bookopolis. Get more tips for making a trailer.

If students have trouble finding a book on Bookopolis, teachers can use the Search for Missing Books button in your Teacher Dashboard to access a database of books that includes children, YA, and adult books. You can send the book link to a specific student or a whole class and they can add it to their Bookopolis bookshelf. Learn more in this short tutorial video.

A few other tips to try if a student can’t find a book:

1. Check the spelling of the title. For a series, try the title name and the series name.
2. Use the Young Adult (YA) search option. There’s a toggle button between Kids and YA in the Bookopolis search bar.
3. Send Bookopolis a Feedback message – Students or teachers can send us a request to add a book using the FEEDBACK button on the bottom of each page. If you want a reply, be sure to include a teacher or parent email!