Customer Reviews

Creative Book Reports: Fun Projects with Rubrics for Fiction and Nonfiction [With CDROM]

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Jane Feber makes her debut as an author at long last with this great book of practical and fun activities for veteran and new teachers. An award winning and highly successful teacher, Jane shares her strategies for success. The book not only provides instructions and rubrics for the activities but schedules, suggestions for group interaction, classroom management tips, and very importantly, authentic pictures of the finished products. With the varied levels of today's students Jane has given us a book with activities to enable all students to achieve success. I have shared this book with numerous teachers and all have wanted a copy.

Creative Book Reports is full of kinesthetic activities to use in differentiating instruction in middle school, elementary, and even some high school classrooms. It is also good for parents to use during the summer to encourage students to respond to the books they are reading. Teachers can find something great to use for teaching higher order thinking skills and for developing a love of good literature. The teacher pages, illustrations, and rubrics make this book extremely user friendly. It is the best organized book of its type I have seen. The CD makes it a snap to adapt activities to your own situation. I will highly recommend this book to my own middle school language arts department and to the elementary teachers who take my university courses.

Don't let the title fool you...this teacher-created resource is a valuable tool for all educators regardless of the subject they teach. I easily incorporate the ideas put forth by Jane Feber into the units I teach in my middle grades science classroom. The students respond favorably as they accomplish multiple tasks, overlapping creativity and research skills. The CD allows teachers to tweak the rubrics to fit their students' needs. And if you ever have the chance to attend one of Feber's numerous workshops or conference sessions, do so immediately! Her high energy enthusiastic approach to student instruction is contagious!

Ms. Feber has thought of everything to help teachers assign book reports. Wow! I think the combination of a teacher's page and a project page with a rubric opens the door for success in reading fiction and non-fiction. The traditional book report has done more harm than good to inspire students to read. Ms.Feber shows that when assigned a hands-on project students respond and all the literary elements can be met. I like the book's wide appeal for teachers to use with all age students-elementary through high school.

The title of this book is deceiving. It is so much more than just book report ideas. I used one of the projects with my sixth grade class right away, and it was a big success. The CD with all of the rubrics to the projects was very helpful. Students were able to show what they had learned from the reading assignment in a creative way, without the usual resistance to a traditional reading assignment. I plan to use this book as often as possible!

Not just ideas for book reports, this book is filled with ideas for activating student learning. It is also not just for middle grade/middle school students. I have used several of these activities with high school students. My students enjoyed the activities and as a result more learning took place.

I was lucky enough to attend the author's workshop at the NCTE convention and then I bought the book. It is a dynamic resource and I use it regularly. I highly recommend it to anyone who wants to set higher standards for their students.

As a middle school science teacher, Jane Feber's ideas are adaptable not only for any subject but for any level of learner. My advanced, standard, and special education students all can produce successful projects using her easy to follow directions. The CD allows you to "tweak" the rubric to make the projects meet your specifications. When I need to add some sparkle to a unit, I reach for this book.

This actually was the second time I've had my hands on this book. The first time, it was gift from Jane to me. She signed it and everything. I let another teacher borrow it and have never seen it since. So, I ordered it on Amazon. Love the book! Love Jane- she's got the best, easy to use, ready to use projects all in one book. The rubrics are so clear, even the parents understand them. I highly reccommend it.

I am teaching 5th grade this year, and I am always looking for new and different ideas to use as projects with books or stories. This is an excellent resource to have on hand. You do not have to do any work with this book, and that is the part I love more than anything! (As a teacher I have enought to do) Worth the money!!!