Scholastic Book Fair Fun, Games, and Tips

Running a book fair can be a scary thing unless you become a seasoned pro like me. I learned a long time ago what to worry about and which worries to let go. You can go with the Scholastic theme or use one of your own. My recent fair took place during Texas Public Schools Week so the focus was on Texas! Easy to decorate and lots of fun.

Make all your decisions weeks in advance to ensure a smooth book fair. Get flyers and special announcement dates set and flyers printed out before your book fair begins. Publicize your fair via local news 

I am glad my Scholastic Book Fair is over. It was a busy week but lots of fun. Sales were down so I was bummed out about that but many factors could have come into play for our school. My school is housed on a university campus with very limited parking so parents now have to pay to park when visiting our school. We have seen fewer parents this year. This is not a good thing.

Get great volunteers!
This is a tough one for me because of the paid parking issue but the wonderful folks at Coastal Community and Teachers Credit Union still volunteered in full force! I could not run my book fair without these very fine folks. They help me set up my fair and run my Book Fair Game Day.

Your best friends:
Your Scholastic sales rep and Restock folks are your best friends. They will listen to your crazy ideas and requests and steer you in the right direction. The wonderful restock representatives are super patient and will do everything they can to locate titles and order them for you. They can tell you the hot sellers and what schools across the country are requesting. They have mad skills for looking up obscure titles and rumored-to-be-had items.

One TIP I got from my clever mom was to use pill bottles or snap lid containers for holding coins when not in use. This helped keep my petty cash organized and easy to fill the register eh morning by dumping the coins in.

On the last day of book fair, I always hold a special Game Day. Here is the Estimation Station. This helps to keep kids occupied while waiting for their turn at a game. I used a bear shaped graham cracker jar filled with one inch colorful cubes. I posted a sign "Make a BEARY good guess" and had slips of paper for kids to fill out with name, grade and their estimation. The winner won a one dollar prize at the book fair.





This is Feed the Alien Cowboy game. Each student attempted to toss four squishy alien balls complete with tentacles into the mouth of the alien. I used a re-purposed acrylic tube with a white L bend pipe attached on top and covered with a foam core shaped alien head. We used this for a recent Benjamin Franklinstein game thus the alien. We just renamed him the Alien Cowboy. Get three in and win a free bookmark or eraser!

"Rope the calf" ring toss game using food coloring in two liter soda bottles and swim dive rings as ring tossers. Kids love to play this game. The colored water bottles also look great year round on my library shelf..









Be sure to get great shots of your families with Clifford! I let our 5th grade students dress up as Clifford. They do a great job and gives them a memory for a lifetime.