Emoji Book Titles

Solving and creating our own emoji book titles was a creative challenge I first started exploring four years ago. It has evolved over time, and this latest version is the one that makes the most sense to me. Try it out here!

Student-created emoji book titles
(From top left corner clockwise: Magic Ramen, Catstronauts, Tiger Rising, Wings of Fire)

I love this activity because

  1. It requires creative thinking (to both solve and create more)
  2. Students choose how they interact - do they want to solve or create?
  3. All the activities are student-generated
  4. I was able to use Google tools for all aspects of the project

Solving emoji book titles

I created an interactive activity which allows them to check the answer. 

In this google slide activity, students use the emoji clues to guess the title of the book. 

By moving the magnifying glass over the box, the answer is revealed.


Creating emoji book titles

While this activity engages many of our learners, I wanted to offer an option for students to create their OWN emoji book title puzzles. I wanted to challenge them to think creatively so I provided directions on the last slide:

It is very simple for students to click on and select the emojis they want from https://www.emojicopy.com/. 

Emojis are collected in the box at the top right


Students then copy these and paste them into my google form

I look through the spreadsheet and copy/paste the appropriate ones into the growing slide deck.

My Takeaways

This idea has evolved over time. It began with an idea and a paper challenge. When I digitized the activity, I was concerned with the amount of time/energy I didn't have to create so many unique emoji book titles to solve. My solution was to turn this over to students, and it was the best decision I could have made. This document is now 50+ slides long. All challenges were created BY students FOR students and it continues to grow.

Thank you to:

  1. A brilliant librarian at the ALA conference in Sharjah (UAE) #SIBFALA18
  2. The paper activity I used from Peter Blenski (The Lego Librarian)
  3. Tony Vincent and his graphics class where I learned about using "Mystery Reveals." 
  4. Meredith Akers' mystery reveal template.


Location: Massachusetts, USA

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