Battle of the books

Towards the beginning of the year the school librarian approached Hunter and said she had noticed that Hunter was a really strong reader and seemed to really love reading.  She said she wanted him to join the 5th grade team for Battle of the books and asked if he was interested.  Of course he was super excited.  There are ten teams of three students that are given a list of five books to read by a certain date.  Every other Monday they meet during lunch to go over what they are reading and practice their comprehension questions.  They discuss the books together and review their questions to prepare for the competition.  In Nov they had their first "battle."  All the fifth and sixth graders come to the library to watch the teams answer comprehension questions about the five books.  This is Hunter's team...

 

The librarian asks each team a question and they have to give the correct answer, the name of the book and author.  They also have to answer before the timer runs out.  For every correct answer they receive different points depending on the round.  I can't remember but I believe there were five rounds.  It was so fun to sit in the back and watch.  She would ask a question and the team would huddle together to discuss with each other before letting their designated speaker give their answer.  The entire room would be dead silent and you could almost feel the whole team hold their breath until the librarian said, "that is correct."  Then there would be hugging or slapping high fives until their turn came again.  A couple of the teams had some tears from a few girls when they answered incorrectly.  Hunter's team did an awesome job taking their time and really working together and it showed, they didn't miss a single question and got the max amount of points possible for that first battle.  Hunter was so excited.  So back to reading the next set of five books and studying to be ready for the next battle at the end of January.  The final battle will be in May and the team with the most points will then go to district.  It has been really fun for Hunter.  He is our major bookworm, for as long as I can remember that boy constantly has a book in his hands.  Deke and I still on a regular basis go in at night and he is in bed with a flashlight reading away :) :)  Comprehension has always been an area that he is gifted in and it has been great to watch him use that strength in a team setting and participate in this.  Emma was so good the entire time but Hudson is well, two, and sitting still for long periods of time just isn't his thing right now.  Thank goodness one of the teacher's aides had suckers and that helped him through it.  Honestly helped us both through :)  Can't wait to watch them again in January!!