Battle of the Books

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS 2024-2025

Battle of the Books is a national reading program. The goal of the program is to support students in their love and discovery of reading by introducing them to quality literature and to develop friendships between students based upon socialization, competition and mutual respect.

What does that look like?

We will spend the season (September - March) reading and reviewing the books on our list in an engaging and fun way to prepare the kids to compete at our school battle and a district-wide battle based on those books.

***We highly encourage students to read at least the first 6 books over the summer.

Our Meetings will be held one day a week, Mondays from 2:40-3:30 for grades 4-5 and Thursdays from 2:40-3:30 for grade 3. At these practices we will review the books read on the book list by discussion and games. Parents will pick students up at the front of the school by the office or students will return to CDC or Rec.

***the 4th/5th grade group will discuss 2 books each week in the order of the book list.

***the 3rd grade group will discuss 1 book each week.

Reading - The kids will read on their own time. Since the battles are so far off, we suggest the kids take simple notes throughout each book - either on post-its in the book or a separate sheet of paper if reading digitally - just as a way to reinforce what they have read and help them remember key points of the books. This is a skill they can use throughout their education. :-)

***To get credit for reading a book, students must submit a book form through Google Forms. Here are the links for each group:

3rd: https://forms.gle/vF5urv5HXFVV8yz99

4th/5th: https://forms.gle/58hJraJVuJumLTSJ8

The Book List and the Battles -

The book list for 3rd grade is 18 titles long whereas the 4th/5th grade list is 28 titles long. In order to participate in the school battle, the kids in 3rd grade will need to have read 10 books (by Feb. 17, 2025) and 4th/5th graders will need to have read 15 of the books (by March 1, 2025) on their respective lists. In order for 4th/5th grade students to participate in the district battle, the kids will need to have read 20 books by March 17, 2025. We suggest reading 3 to 4 books a month to get there.

***the book lists and info can be found on the school website under the tab “Programs” and then “Battle of the Books”.

The Battle Teams for the 3rd grade and 4th/5th grade school battle, as well as the 4th/5th grade district battle will be evenly matched and formed solely on the number of books read. In other words, each team will have collectively read about the same amount of books without taking anything else into consideration. These teams are created by the district coordinator using a computer program.

After our school battle, a new team of 4th/5th graders will be formed to send to the district battle. These are students who qualify (read at least 20 books) and have a desire to participate in the district battle. It is purely their choice (a confidential vote on their part is done at practice) as some students do not feel like going to the district battle is something they would enjoy. We will submit the list of names and a computer program will pick evenly-matched teams based only on the number of books read for each school team in the district so it will be a fairly matched district battle.

Where Can I Get the Books? Our school library should have a lot of the books on the list. The public library has a whole section dedicated to Battle of the Books and also has 2 apps, Hoopla and Cloud Library, where a lot of the books can be found and checked out digitally. Amazon and Audible are also great choices.

Interested in joining the team for the 2024-2025 school year?

3rd Grade: Leaders are Paula Pope and Kimberly Green.

Please email your child’s name to [email protected]. If you are interested in helping, please indicate that in your email.

4th/5th Grade:

Please email your child’s name to Claire Izakowitz ([email protected]) as the main contact/email correspondence for correspondence for the 4th/5th grade group, which will be led by Claire Izakowitz, Jesse Murphy, and Kate Leiva

Click the image below to view an interaction slide presentation.