BoB 2014-15
Melanie and I are leading the after school Battle of the Books club this year. It sounds very official, but in fact we made this up out of our heads. :) Several of the other schools have BoB team clubs that are run by PTA parents; I think it surely goes without saying that it would be a stretch for our (ever-growing, more impressive every year, but still relatively "grassroots" if you will) PTA to create this from nothing. So, Melanie and I decided to do it. We both read the BoB books every year, anyway, and we love the kids, and it's always a heartbreaker to watch our kids think they have a chance at the district battle and then fail miserably.
It is, however, somewhat inspiring every time something like that happens and I realize that probably not one of our little Bullfrogs knows that Mark Twain is considered one of the top three Most Difficult Schools in our district. I mean, that makes the possibilities endless, right? And somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Atticus Finch saying "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."
I have currently read the following BoB books (from the list of sixteen):
Ungifted by Gregory Korman
Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
Wonder by RJ Palacio
Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steven Sheinkin
Red Thread Sisters by Carol A. Peacock
Here's the thing about BoB - the books are books that I personally enjoy reading. You know what that means, among other things? The books are relatively difficult. Books written for first- and second-grade reading levels are not interesting to me. Even third- and fourth-grade books, frankly, are not often my favorites. They do try to make the BoB books span across multiple levels - so yes, there's one book (Whatever After: Fairest of All by Sarah Mylnowski) that is an AR 2.8 level - but the mean AR level across the sixteen books is 4.6, and only four books are below a fourth-grade level (the highest, Lincoln's Grave Robbers, is an AR 6.6).
It did recently occur to me that kids can have someone read the books to them. We have several kids that I know of personally, so surely many that I don't know about, who are terrible decoders (you know, sounding out) but have excellent comprehension skills. I am going to bring that up at the next club meeting.
Y'all, you should've seen the first meeting. Melanie and I had put a cap of 75 kids - and honestly, we only included that in the parent permission letter so that we could refuse to admit any of the Frequent Flyers (you know, kids who are in the office all the time and would keep us from being able to do anything cool on Monday afternoons) - but so far, everyone's been accepted, and I think the roster is at about 50 kids. Last Monday, which was the first meeting, we had around 40 show up... and they were SO GOOD. They were all totally into it, even the squirrelly ones. They listened. They raised their hands and waited while other kids were talking. They looked at the kid who was speaking, even when their own hands were raised. They asked relevant and intelligent questions.
I think this might be my new favorite thing I've done so far at work.
I just love my job, y'all.
It is, however, somewhat inspiring every time something like that happens and I realize that probably not one of our little Bullfrogs knows that Mark Twain is considered one of the top three Most Difficult Schools in our district. I mean, that makes the possibilities endless, right? And somewhere in the back of my mind I can hear Atticus Finch saying "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win."
I have currently read the following BoB books (from the list of sixteen):
Ungifted by Gregory Korman
Who Could That Be at This Hour? by Lemony Snicket
Wonder by RJ Palacio
Lincoln's Grave Robbers by Steven Sheinkin
Red Thread Sisters by Carol A. Peacock
Here's the thing about BoB - the books are books that I personally enjoy reading. You know what that means, among other things? The books are relatively difficult. Books written for first- and second-grade reading levels are not interesting to me. Even third- and fourth-grade books, frankly, are not often my favorites. They do try to make the BoB books span across multiple levels - so yes, there's one book (Whatever After: Fairest of All by Sarah Mylnowski) that is an AR 2.8 level - but the mean AR level across the sixteen books is 4.6, and only four books are below a fourth-grade level (the highest, Lincoln's Grave Robbers, is an AR 6.6).
It did recently occur to me that kids can have someone read the books to them. We have several kids that I know of personally, so surely many that I don't know about, who are terrible decoders (you know, sounding out) but have excellent comprehension skills. I am going to bring that up at the next club meeting.
Y'all, you should've seen the first meeting. Melanie and I had put a cap of 75 kids - and honestly, we only included that in the parent permission letter so that we could refuse to admit any of the Frequent Flyers (you know, kids who are in the office all the time and would keep us from being able to do anything cool on Monday afternoons) - but so far, everyone's been accepted, and I think the roster is at about 50 kids. Last Monday, which was the first meeting, we had around 40 show up... and they were SO GOOD. They were all totally into it, even the squirrelly ones. They listened. They raised their hands and waited while other kids were talking. They looked at the kid who was speaking, even when their own hands were raised. They asked relevant and intelligent questions.
I think this might be my new favorite thing I've done so far at work.
I just love my job, y'all.