Book Jenga

Libraries are meant to be accessible to students, as librarians we all know this.  We want students to be able to find the books they want to read, and we especially want them to gain the skills necessary to be able to locate books and resources independently.

When I moved every single book in the library to a new location over the summer I knew that the returning students who had been used to the "same" library for the past 5 or 6 years were going to be a little bit (or a lot) lost when it came to knowing where things were.

Enter Book Jenga!  I cannot and will not take credit for coming up with amazingly fun and engaging way to review how to search for and locate books in the library.  I came across this idea on The Future Ready Librarians Facebook page in a post from TL Jenna Reeh.  I saved it for later and when I visited her amazing blog Lens into the Library  I knew I had to give it a go!

I ended up modifying it a bit and creating my own Google forms that the students used to pull up the books they would be searching for.  Like Ms. Reeh, I created different color coded forms with different books in each one, so the groups were all looking for different books during the game.  Setting up the first form took the most time, but after that you simply change the names of the form sections to the book titles of your choosing and voila!

FORM SETUP
Here is the link to the form template for this game.  It will force you to make a copy and then you can edit the first one to include book titles from your collection and make copies for however many groups you would like to have.  I changed the theme to match the team color as well.  In the screencast below you can see how you only need to go through and change the sections names starting at section two and it will automatically change the "go to section # (Book Title)" to the book title you enter.

I found it easiest to walk around the library and make a list of books I wanted to include from a variety of sections my 5th and 6th graders would typically access, then I just crossed them off as I added them to the forms. Also only use HARDBACK books!

I made the forms accessible to students using Symbaloo to create color coded squares for each one.  This is made it really easy to access and students knew exactly which one to click on.

GAME SETUP
You will need enough Jenga sets for each team to have their own game.  You can definitely find these at second hand stores or ask around for people with sets they no longer use.  I ended up buying mine because I was in a bit of a hurry and no one responded to my plea on Facebook, they run around $10 a game. Rather than writing directly on the block I used round sticker labels to label 15 random blocks with numbers 1-15.

You will need need 1 or 2 laptops or devices for students to access the forms and search for books in the catalog.  I am in an elementary setting and I only have 27 minutes with students each week so I used 2 Chromebooks for each team and I had them logged in to the form Symbaloo page and the catalog to cut down on setup time so they could get to the game as quickly as possible.

GAME ROLES & HOW TO PLAY
This slide deck goes through the game roles which also help students understand how the game works as you go through each job.  Students should rotate through jobs after each book is added to the tower.

Hints
I made it clear that students could use 2 hands when pulling blocks and if needed they could return blank blocks to the stack to stabilize it. If the Jenga tower falls early on it is pretty much game over at that point or they have to re-stack, so I altered the standard Jenga rules for this game!

You will also notice on the Search Party slide that if they see that the book is OUT in the catalog, they should still write down the call number and go to where that book would be located and choose a HARD BACK book next to their books shelf location.




Basic Gist of the Game

1. Pull out blocks until you find a numbered one
2. Enter the number into the form and click Next
3. Note the title of the book
4. Search for the book title and write down the call number
5. The search team locates the book using the title and call number
6. The book is brought back and added to the tower

Hint

I did have to give students a hint of how to stack them by standing one up and the laying one flat on top of it and so on.  It's not supposed to be a pile, it's a Book Tower and the taller the better!

My students absolutely LOVED this game and I had 100% engagement in all of my 5th & 6th grade classes!  I was impressed by how well they worked together and each team came up with different strategies for how they wanted to approach the game.  I plan to do this again later in the year with my 3rd and 4th graders once we spend more time in Destiny Discover since this is the first year they are using this version of our catalog.

Please let me know if you have any questions on this game! The setup does require some time and effort on your part but I promise the results are totally worth it! #KidsDeserveIt