Book Trailer!

One of the more challenging but interesting assignments I had to complete this semester was a book trailer. Much like a movie trailer, a book trailer is a preview of the story without giving away the ending! Book trailers are supposed to engage students and encourage them to explore the rest of the book on their own. This assignment was difficult for me because I had to use a brand new program called voice thread. This program allows you to create a mini-video and include a bunch of cool features. At first, it wasn't easy making the voice thread, but once I got the hang of it, it was a simple and fun way to create my trailer. Everybody should check voice thread out!
   For this trailer, I had to pick a science trade book. Something that I had to do for this project that I had never done before was create a storyboard. I used Google Slides to make mine for this project.
I put a picture from the book in the slide, and then wrote my script in the notes. Once I made this, all I had to do was upload my slideshow into voice thread and record my voiceover and then I was done. It was very easy and that is how I would recommend that anybody else make a voice thread. The book I chose was "The Tiny Seed", written and illustrated by Eric Carle. This book was very visually appealing and focused on abstract drawings. This most certainly will catch the attention of students. This book follows the journey of a tiny seed and his much bigger seed family. The book shows how seeds travel from place to place and how plants start growing in places they weren't growing in before. The book is very easy to follow, and really paints a picture of how seeds travel. In my trailer, I play the part of the tiny seed himself and spend a couple of minutes previewing the story and the pictures. Here is the link to my book trailer on voice thread if you want to check it out!
   Creating a book trailer that didn't give away the ending was very difficult, but I'm very happy with how mine came out! I'm using my book trailer in my unit plan for my class, and I also would love to use it in my future classroom as well. Book trailers are fun and engaging ways to get students to connect and get excited about a lesson. All teachers should consider using one in their instruction at some point, and make one themselves if they can!