Friday, March 13, 2015

March Madness

I have to be honest that I don't really follow college basketball. I was intrigued, however, when I read about using the basketball bracket system as an excuse to share even more great books with students! I originally heard about it here at The Nerdy Book Club. Their ten reason to participate was enough to sell me on giving participation a shot! I was able to access the picture book brackets here at The Road to Bookville. Because it took the other teachers and me a little time to collect the books, we did miss a round of voting on the website, but have been diligently reading the books in class and voting within our own classrooms. We will be merging our votes as a grade level as well in order to determine a grade level winner of our version of March Madness!  And I have to say, the kids are loving it!  We have been having great conversations about the books and it is the most fun when the pairing of books makes the choice even more difficult.  It is also fun comparing our results with other classes.  Sometimes the same book wins and other times, the votes lead to opposing results. 
At this point, the front runners for round one in our class are: 
Three Bears in a Boat by by David Soman
Sparky by Jenny Offill and  Chris Appelhans
Ivan: Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate
Scaredy Squirrel by Melanie Watt
Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems

Can't wait to see who our winner is!