Over the past month or so, Class 2H has been immersed in the Children's Choice Book Awards for 2014. Since 2008, The Children's Choice Book Awards have provided children the opportunity to voice their opinions about the books written for them. These awards help children, librarians, parents, and teachers create lists of books that are motivating and engaging for kids. Essentially, these books are kid tested AND kid approved!
Each year there are five finalists (books) in the following categories: K-2, 3-4, 5-6, and Teen Book of the Year. Class 2H read aloud five books selected from the K-2 and 3-4 categories:
Bugs In My Hair by David Shannon
Pancho Rabbit and the Coyote: A Migrant's Tale by Duncan Tonatiuh
Bean Dog and Nugget: The Ball by Charise Mericle Harper
Mustache Baby by Bridget Heos
The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Daywalt
After reading each selection, we wrote summaries of each book, rated each book, cast our votes online for our favorite book, created persuasive posters to convince others to see our perspective, and wrote an opinion piece ( a review) for the book in which we voted. Even though the goal of this unit was to focus on opinion writing, we also learned a thing or two about democracy along the way! AND we confirmed that reading is FUN!!! We, the kids, should have a voice in what we consider to be quality literature. Our voices and votes count. Let us be heard!
Check out our FANTASTIC persuasive posters! Would these posters convince you to check out these entertaining books from your local library or book store? Might they persuade you to change your vote last minute??
Once we showed off our powers of persuasion, it was time to cast our votes online.
Next, our pencils and brains were hard at work drafting our mock Kidsday book reviews. We worked diligently to explore new adjectives and provide supporting evidence with specific examples from our books to strengthen our opinions. It was certainly helpful to use a checklist as a guide to make sure we included all parts in our review- title/author, summary, opinion, adjectives, examples to support our adjectives, and a convincing closing.
Soon, it was time to meet with our peers to revise and edit our opinion pieces. Next, we met with the teacher for a final conference. During this conference we worked on one or two things that would improve our writing. We didn't correct every single error because we still want it to be our own work! Finally, we published our reviews! Here is a snapshot of some of the published pieces.
Oh, you want to know which books won? Well, in Grades 3-4, Bugs In My Hair won! Even though nobody in our class voted for fan fave David Shannon, we did learn something about democracy. Majority rules!! The book that won in the category K-2 was...drum roll please...The Day the Crayons Quit! Although only a handful of us voted for this book, it was one of our class faves all year long. Reading all of these nominated books is a must! Now it is your turn to READ- Read Everything And Decide!!
Next assignment for our budding journalists during Writer's Workshop? Fractured fairy tales!!!!
