After they couldn’t take the anticipation any longer, I explained that I was going to raffle off who was going to get to read each book first.  I did have to explain that they weren’t going to get to keep the book {my reading teacher heart skipped a beat when they groaned at this}.  I read the titles and the back cover of the books that were available.

Each student received one raffle ticket.  They could fill it out and choose one bin to put it in or, if they weren’t interested in any of the books, they didn’t need to participate.  To my surprise, every student filled out a ticket!

Here are the tickets we used.  You can download them for free here or by clicking on the picture!

Then they brought their ticket up to place it in the bin of their choice.  Some books were more popular than others.  However, students also played the odds.  I overheard “there’s not many tickets in this bin, so I have a better chance of winning this one.”

At the end of the day {after both my reading classes}, I pulled names.  My homeroom kids really got into it!  They provided a drumroll and were eager to deliver the books to the winners.  I had students at the end of the day, hunting me down to see who won and congratulating each other.  The book raffle was a success!