OBOB – bob – bobbing along

One of my annual summer goals is to read the OBOB books for the upcoming season. I like to have a general understanding of each book so I can be a better coach.

Here is the 2018-19 list. I have read the titles in bold.

6^th to 8^th Grade Division

• Absolutely Truly by Heather Vogel Frederick
• Avenging the Owl by Melissa Hart
• The Body in the Woods by April Henry
• Cryptid Hunters by Roland Smith
• Doll Bones by Holly Black
• The Gauntlet by Karuna Riazi
• Ghost by Jason Reynolds
• I Will Always Write Back by Caitlin Alifirenka & Martin Ganda
• The Luck Uglies by Paul Durham
• My Seventh-Grade Life in Tights by Brooks Benjamin
• Restart by Gordon Korman
• Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney
• Small as an Elephant by Jennifer Richard Jacobson
• The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan
• The Wishing Spell by Chris Colfer
• Wolf Hollow by Lauren Wolk

It’s been a weird sort of summer – and short – so I have only reached 50%. Fortunately, I don’t start talking to kids about it until October and the battles don’t begin until January, so I still have ample time to read the other 50%.

Moving on up

The three 6th graders and a 7th grader sailed through their four preliminary battles like a well-oiled machine. Winning each of the battles, they had 175 points. That seemed like a good number, but we had to wait until all the other battles finished to see how we’d fared. Teams around us talked,whispered and laughed. We could over hear the team totals of the teams around us. We figured we were almost certainly in the next round, the Sweet 16.

We were shocked and elated to find out we had the 4th most points. Woohoo!

  

The  subsequent rounds were elimination rounds. If we won the Sweet 16, we’d go on, if we lost, the tournament was over. The team, two boys and two girls, was ready and played well, handily defeating their competition. We were moving on to the Awesome 8 round, competing against a team in our school district.

One of the members of that team was a former student, but that didn’t stop me from celebrating when they missed a question. The competition was tight; we were ahead by a bit at the halfway point. In the second half, we missed a few, but never lost our lead. At the end, we were ahead by four points. When ased if they wanted to challenge a question, my team said no, but the other team did. When this happens, teams have two minutes to find their answer in book. Fortunately for us, they could not.

That put us in the Fabulous 4 and that we are going to State!

So, my 2017 OBOB season isn’t quite over yet, and that is very okay with me.

OBOB 2018

I am in the last week of 2017 OBOB Battles. By Friday, we will know who the Stoller champions are. The state wide committee recently annuce the “Almost Finished” list of next year’s books. The 6-8 and 9-12 lists have been finalized, the 3-5 have not. You can see all three lists HERE.

I  have some of these in my classroom library already and will start gleaning them so I can figure out which ones I need to order.  Here is the full 6-8 list

 

6-8 Division (Final)

 Fallout by Gwenda Bond

 Found by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

 I Am Princess X by Cherie Priest

 Kalahari by Jessica Khoury

 The Lightning Queen by Laura Resau

 Lost in the Sun by Lisa Graff

 The Mark of the Dragonfly by Jaleigh Johnson

 Popular: A Memoir by Maya Van Wagenen (Paperback title: Popular: How a Geek in Pearls Discovered the Secret to Confidence Hardcover title: Popular: Vintage Wisdom for a Modern Ge

 Rebel Mechanics by Shanna Swendson

 The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen

 Schooled by Gordon Korman

 The Seventh Most Important Thing by Shelley Pearsall

 The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

 The Turn of the Tide by Rosanne Parry

 The War That Saved My Life by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley

This week’s book talks 11/29-12/2

A four-day week, so four book talks…and I can only remember three titles. I should write the titles down before I leave each Friday. Sigh. There was no theme, but I notice now that every book title begins with a “B”. Maybe that’s why I can’t remember the fourth book. It doesn;t follow the pattern.

First up was Bloody Jack, the first book in L. A. Meyer’s excellent series.

I’ve written about this series before. In my book talk, I told my students that I listened to the whole series n audiobook and highly recommend the narrator, Katherine Kellgren.

Wednesday seems to be a blur because I can’t remember what book I talked about.

Thursday was Beetle Boy by M. G. Leonard.

In talking about this book, I let the kids know that I shelved it in the Magical Animals tub, but it could just as easily have gone into the Humor or Mystery and Adventure tubs. That seemed to appeal to several boys, who I say writing down the title on their “Read Next”page.

A lot of kids added Friday’s title, Brambleheart by Henry Cole, to their “Read Next”page.

There was an audible response when I told them that this was by the author of A Nest for Celeste.  Most of them were familiar with that book because it was an elementary OBOB book several years ago. I told them that, although it was written for an audience younger than they were, it is sometimes once to curl up with a book that feels familiar on a cold rainy day.

I hope you were able to curl up with something good this weekend.

Happy Hallow Reads

Last week, I book talked five books with some Halloweenie connection.

The scariest book was the first one, Coraline,  by Neil Gaiman.

I admitted to the kids that I had never read the book or seen the movie. I told them that Iknew enough about Gaiman and the book to know that it twists reality in a way that seems eerily possible and that seemed to intrigue a few students.

Next up was Raina Telgemeier’s Ghosts, a graphics novel to steer us into safer territory, since I don’t really read scary books.

Many students had read Telgemeier’s other books and that was enough of a recommendation.

On Wednesday, I told them about My Zombie Hamster, by Havelock McCreely. Zombies and humor seem a perfect combination for sixth graders.

Thursday, I told them about a new one in our classroom library, The Accidental Afterlife of Thomas Marsden by Emma Trevayne. This book gave me a chance to explain a little of the history of grave robbers.

The last book I told them about was one of this year’s OBOB books: Zombie Baseball Beatdown  by Paolo Bacigalupi.

I’m not yet sure what I will book talk today. I think I will decide once I am in my classroom. I will take a few minutes to leaf through the book bins and choose the 5 books of the week.

 

 

Bookmarks 2016!

Saturday was the Oregon Battle of the Books State Tournament. My team didn’t make it, but my former school’s team did.

Three of these five started OBOB with me 2 years ago as 3rd graders and leaving them behind was one of the hardest parts of changing jobs. They had worked hard since the regional tournament, almost a month ago and were ready for today’s challenge, along with 23 other elementary teams.

The first round was the pool play round, just like at the regional meet. Three teams in a room and the 16 teams with the highest point totals would go on to the next round. The William Walker Bookmarks sat out the first round, then played each of the two teams in back to back matches.  A perfect game is 80 points, but extra points can be earned by “stealing” questions the other team misses. However, 80 points probably isn’t enough to get you into the next round at this level of play. The Bookmarks won both battles, ending with 90 points altogether, which was good, but was it good enough?

We went back to the auditorium where the Sweet Sixteen Round was to be announced.My stomach was tight as they announce the teams. Our name wasn’t called sand wasn’t called and wasn’t called. Then, finally, the last pari announced was Ashbrook (11th seed) vs William Walker (6th Seed). We were in!

We went to the room where we discovered that our moderator was none other than the librarian who had preceded me at William Walker. Could it be a good omen?

The play was exciting, but, ultimately, William Walker prevailed, putting us into the Elite 8. We stayed in the same room with the same moderator for the next battle. At the halfway point, they were tied. The next half was tougher and they lost, marking the end of the road for the Bookmarks.

Some tears ensued, understandable after so many months of hard work and hours of tension and excitement. Within a short time though, jokes were being made, plans for laser tag and ice-cream discussed and they were back to their funny selves.

I feel like I’ve come full circle with the bookmarks. I’ve left William Walker. Next year the three oldest girls will be off to middle school. They already have a plan for their 6th grade team, but for now, they are loping forward to reading whatever they want.

Battle of the Books Regional meet #SOL15

Yesterday, I took my school’s winning OBOB (Oregon Battle of the Books) team to the regional meet.

I had a feeling right from October, when OBOB started, that this would be the team that I’d be taking to represent William Walker Elementary School. They’ve known each other forever and work well together. They also came in second at our school last year and ended that season saying that next year would be their year. They were right.Once they became school champs their rallying cry became “Bookmarks 2015”!!!

The regional meet began with  preliminary pool play. There were 49 elementary teams, three teams to a room. In the room we play two matches. We lost the first match to West TV, only missing one question. The girls were a little down. They watched West TV play Metzger in the second match and their confidence buoyed. It was Metzger’s first year and they were decimated by West TV. On the third match in our pool Metzger rotated in their alternate and did better, but we still won rather handily. Final totals were West TV 100, William Walker 85, Metzger 55.

Going to the next round, the Sweet 16 is all about point totals. Only the top 16 teams go into the next round. From my experience at regionals over the years, I knew that West TV would be in for sure. I figured we had a 50/50 chance. We went to the cafeteria to wait for the results. It took almost an hour for all the results to be tabulated. Finally, the spokesman came out an announced the top 13 teams. West TV was #1 at the end of the first round. Then he said words none of us had ever heard before. “There is a 5-way tie for the last 3 spots.” He called those names in alphabetical order and William Walker was the last name he called. We cheered madly, then had to go in for the 5-way tie breaker.

The girls’ excitement was back. After drawing lots for positions, the spokesman began the tie breaking process. Coaches have to sit at the front of the room beside the moderator who reads the questions. This is excruciatingly painful.  You watch your team (with whom you cannot communicate) and their parents, who are in as much agony as you are. At the end of the first tie breaking round, it was all tied up. By the end of the second round, two teams were eliminated and we were definitely going to the Sweet 16. Then there was one more round to determine our seed position. We came out on top so got the 14th seed spot. On to the next Battle.

By this time, the parents looked as drained as the girls were excited. By the end of the “In which Book” round, the score was tied. Unfortunately, the girls missed a question in the content round and lost, but we were all really proud of how well they did.

Bookmarks 2016!!!

Winding down

It’s my last week of OBOB for the year. We started in October and here it is, late February. From October through mid-January the kids and I met during my plan time on Wednesdays. From mid-January through today, I’ve had a battle a day, with two battles on Wednesdays. THE FINAL BATTLE is on Monday, but it will take today’s last round robin battle to determine who will be the second team in that battle, which will happen on the stage, in the gym, in front of whichever 3rd, 4th and 5th grade classes decide to come.

It was a little harder to organize this year as a regular classroom teacher. My schedule as librarian and ESL teacher both had a lot more wiggle room for special events like this. But I made it work and the teachers weren’t too crabby with me. I will definitely be glad to get my plan time back. But it has been worth it.

It’s not really over after today. Or even after Monday. The team who wins on Monday will go to the regional meet on Saturday, March 7th. The top two teams from there go on tho the State championship in April. I had a team that went that far once, and ended up #2 in the State. I’d love that to happen again, but mostly, I just want the kids to have fun.

Summer is OBOB, bob, bobbing along

The first four weeks of summer vacation are over. There are still six weeks to go, and that fact makes me a little giddy. It hasn’t all been fun and games. Yes, it’s been mostly fun and games, but I have been doing some serious professional reading, too. I am a PD facilitator for my school and in 2014-15, we are focusing on the Common Core Reading standards. Woohoo! Last year we focused on Math and I had to fake knowing what I was talking about. This year I feel as though I am in my element. But, to give myself a head start, I’m reading The Pathways to the Common Core by Lucy Calkins, Mary Ehrenworth and Chris Lehman.

I’m not plowing through it. I’m reading a section every morning as I drink my coffee. It is rather readable and explains things very well.

My other professional reading pile is made up of OBOB books. I have read half of the books so far:

The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester by Barbara O’Connor

The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo

Night of the Twisters by Ivy Ruckman

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Rules by Cynthia Lord

Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume

The Trouble with Chickens by Doreen Cronin

The World According to Humphrey by Betty G. Birney

 

I have the other half to go.

Gaby, Lost and Found by Angela Cervantes

Kizzy Ann Stamps by Jeri Watts

A Nest for Celeste by Henry Cole

Sasquatch by Roland Smith

Starry River of the Sky by Grace Lin

Swindle by Gordon Korman

Tales from the Odyssey, Part One by Mary Pope Osborne

The Year of the Book by Andrea Cheng

I hope your summer reading plans are progressing as nicely as mine!

OBOB SOLSC 15

Today I take my top team to the regional OBOB meet. That’s Oregon Battle of the Books.

Three of the four kids came second in the state last year. The fourth member moved and we will see him at the meet because his new team was their school champion. We are in the same pool as last year. One of the teams we faced last year were in it for the first time. But this year they know a little more and, I suspect are better prepared. My team is good, but as 5th graders, I sometimes worry they aren’t as hungry  to win as they were last year. They will work hard, and once the battles commence, they will be very competitive. Theya re well prepared and know their stuff. But, just in class, wish us luck.

UPDATE:  Well we did OK, but not  well enough to go beyond the preliminary round. In fact, no one from our pool did. They were sad, but new it would be tough, based on their scores.