Battle of the Books

Whew!  What a week!  We've been busy bees at school this week, with a Bond Celebration for the completion of our new school wing, Family Literacy Night, and Battle of the Books! 

I am SO proud of my Battle of the Books team, because they WON!!!  Hurray!  The kids did SUCH a great job reading 64 specific books and practicing their titles and authors. 

See, here is how the competition works. 
All 3rd-5th grade students are given the opportunity to participate.  It is their choice. 
There is a list of 64 specific books.  The list is split into 4, with a set of 16 books for each student to read.
In December, a school battle takes place with students answering questions about the books they have read.  Those students with the most points for correct answers will be on the team. 
The team of four then works together to practice book titles and authors, review books, plan a Book Talk to give, and read, read, READ!

The competition is between four schools.  Two schools compete to answer questions about the books, earning 5 points for the correct title and 5 points for the author for 10 points total.  Believe me, those author points make a difference!  The winner of the first round competes against the winner of the second round and one is declared an overall winner.  Actually, they are ALL winners because of all of the books they have read, but one group gets some bragging rights.  This year, WE WON!!!  I have to say I am super proud of my kids. They did all the work.  I just guided them slightly and provided support. 
One of the other librarians put together the most amazing review using QUIZLET.  She put in all of the book titles and authors for kids to take quizzes on.  I really think this helped strengthen their recall! 


 

QUIZLET is an amazing tool for teachers.  You can create quizzes of all kinds, from flashcards, to fill in the blank, word match, to true/false quizzes.  Search the site to see if there is a quiz already created on your subject or create one yourself.  This is a perfect tool to use for book reviews and comprehension checks.  Students take the quiz and receive a grade on their effort.  Quizlet allows them to see what the correct answer is in comparison with their answer, so they can analyze their choices for themselves. 
I encourage you to give Quizlet a try!   
You can check it out at  http://quizlet.com/