Wednesday, March 26, 2014

It's My 100th Blog Post! Book Battle Edition

I'm really happy I decided to make blogging a resolution for this year.  2 blog posts a week is my requirement (I've only faltered twice...during my Disney Princess half marathon weekend and the week before spring break...see, good excuses).  If I keep the good work up, I get to reward myself with a blog template makeover this summer!  Yay!  


Last week, I decided to try my hand at introducing book battles to my students.  The approach I went for was fairy tale style battles.  That way my students would be familiar with the stories, but be able to apply that knowledge to a new format.  The grades I tried it with, really got into it!

I introduced this idea to 2nd, 4th, and 5th grade by displaying a tournament bracket á la March Madness with the title "Battle of the Books."  The rules were that each team table was choosing a selection of like fairy tale books and they would browse/read through them to choose the one they thought was the best.  They would present as a group their book to the class and explain why they thought everyone should vote for their title.  The book was entered on a bracket to compete with another title.

The fairy tale stories pulled from the shelves were the original and the fractured versions of:

  • Jack and the Beanstalk
  • The Little Red Hen
  • Goldilocks and the Three Bears
  • Cinderella
  • The Three Little Pigs
  • The Princess and the Pea
  • Little Red Riding Hood
If you would like a list of the titles my students read, just comment on this post and I would be happy to provide you with the list!

Let me tell you... My students were workin' it!  And this is only the beginning.


Image courtesy of Stuart Miles/freedigitalphotos.net

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