Library Musical Chairs

Hi, friends! Jennifer Lundgren graciously agreed to write a guest post about library musical chairs for us. You are going to love this game to promote reading! Here’s what she says…

As March Madness(R) was approaching, I was excited to hold our first ever book tournament. I had also seen a post on the Learning Librarians Facebook group about musical chairs so I decided to combine the two ideas. My first step was to select 16 favorite picture books as well as 16 chapter books. Using free resources from Teachers pay Teachers (Book Madness: A Tournament of Books By Catherine Reed – The Brown Bag Teacher), I created two brackets for my hallway bulletin board.

Next, I used Google Forms to create surveys for the students. I set up the library in advance with 26 chairs in a circle, and put a book on each chair. Some of the classes have more than 26 students, so I had extra books on hand and was able to add chairs as needed. If the class was smaller, no worries just leave the extra chairs in the circle.

Now for the fun part! Once students arrived on “game day,” I had them stand around the circle as I explained the brackets and the musical chairs. Many could tell me who they wanted to win the basketball tournament, and they were excited to see which book was going to win, too. For grades
Kindergarten through second, I used only picture books. Even though we had only 16 books in our bracket, I set out duplicates or sequels to reach the total number of books needed for the number of students.

No one gets “out” in this game of musical chairs, but they might get bumped out of line by their neighbors and they just walk to the next open chair. I told the students when the music went off, they were to stop and “read” the book in front of them. “Reading” could include a picture walk, or a quick read, but done in silence. Once the music started, they stood up, returned the books and kept walking.

For grades 3-6, I used a combination of picture books and chapter books. We discussed the concept of speed reading which for us meant read the review on the back and the first two pages of chapter one. I always kept my eye on one student in each class to make sure I didn’t have him stop at the same book more than once.

After the students had played 4-5 rounds of musical chairs, it was time to vote. I gave the school a full week to get through the Sweet 16, and posted the winners Monday morning on the hallway bulletin board. Again, I used Google Forms to make my Elite 8 survey. Although we won’t play musical chairs again this week, we will use some of our library time to vote as we make our way to the final four. Once we have a winner for both tournaments, I will use some leftover book fair money to purchase a copy of the winning title for each classroom.

This was a very fun activity with music and movement, but my favorite part was the pure joy of reading. The students got so excited about what book they landed on. The picture perfect moment when they were all sitting in a circle, READING, was absolutely priceless!

Jennifer Lundgren moved from the classroom to the library in 2017.  She was inspired by the amazing librarian that taught her three children, who are all away at school now.  She lives in Chandler, Arizona and enjoys spending time outdoors with her husband. 

Thank you, Jennifer, for sharing your great idea with us!