Tournament of the Books FINAL ROUND 2015

Our first Tournament of the Books is coming to a close, thank you all for your participation and continuous voting. In our semi-final round two powerhouse series have emerged as winners to advance to our championship.

Semi Final Totals

Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney 238 votes
Junie B. Jones Series by Barbara Park 27 votes

The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins 318 votes
The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 38 votes

VS

You can cast your vote for the final round by clicking BEGIN below. There is no limit to the number of times you can vote and voting remains open until April 6th.

We are inviting students to begin an online conversation regarding the remaining two books. We encourage students to post their favorite parts, characters, and thoughts about the books that remain. They may post their comments in the comments box below this blog post.

Please remind them of proper online etiquette and the types of posts that would be acceptable. They must click on the word "comments" and begin typing their thoughts. They may post as Anonymous or use their Google Account, but we would like them to include their first name and last initial in their post. :-)

Tournament of the Books Round 3

The NCAA College Basketball Tournament is in full swing and brackets are being busted across the country. Even if you don't participate in watching college basketball throughout the year it is always fun to hear about the inspiring stories of the teams in the tournament and the Cinderella stories of the small schools who win big.

Even the competitors of our own tournament have some interesting stories. 

• Did you know Jeff Kinney, the author of Diary of a Wimpy Kid, also created the website Poptropica.com? 
• Did you know the Junie B. Jones series is banned in some schools because of Junie B's bad manners? 
• Did you know Suzanne Collins graduated from Indiana University? 
• Surprisingly S.E. Hinton wrote the majority of the book, The Outsiders, when she was 16 years old. 

After 309 voters...here are our current winners:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Series by Jeff Kinney 128 votes 

Fault in our Stars by John Green  117 votes

Junie B. Jones Series by Barbara Park 130 votes

Fault in our Stars by John Green 101 votes 

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins 243 votes

Sideways Stories by Wayside School by Louis Sachar 55 votes 

Wonder by R.J. Palacio 96 votes

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton 156 votes 

This next vote will be a head-to-head battle of two Elementary series and two Middle School titles!

Click  BEGIN to vote in the next round. 

Reading Contests- Dr. Seuss and My On Reader

Today a reader, tomorrow a leader! We are currently running several reading contests in our building. Students are encouraged to read 5 hours this month to help us reach our school goal of 5,000 minutes. If this goal is met Mrs. Concus and Mrs. Smith will have WILD and CRAZY hair after Spring Break. There were Dr. Suess Hat tracking sheets sent home with students at the beginning of March. Students color in stripes on the hats every 10 minutes they read or are read to. If you need an additional sheet please come to the main office.

In addition to this contest, we are also encouraging students to read online using our My On Reader software. My On Reader offers students the opportunity to read books on their level or have audio books read aloud to them. Their time spent reading can include these online books. Students who increase their reading level and spend the most time reading online can earn the chance of being a contestent in our end of the year Minute to Win It and Fear Factor events.

Here is the break down of ways students can earn entries from MyOn Reader:

• Increase your reading level- 1 entry
• Class who spends the most time reading- 1 entry per student
• Student with highest time spent reading per class- 5 entries for that student
• Highest Lexile growth in each class-10 entries for that student.

Website: www.myon.com 

Username: Computer Login

Password: Last name (starting with a capital letter)