Battle of the Books #BOB2018

KPBSD Battle of the Books

Moose Pass BoB 3rd-4th 2018
Students of the Kenai Peninsula Borough School District have been participating in Battle of the Books (BOB) for 33 years. The original idea for BOB came from a radio program sponsored by the Chicago Public Library in the 1940s. A school librarian from Illinois, Joanne Kelly, took the idea and used it in her library. Years later the idea came to Alaska with Ros Goodman, a former Illinois librarian, on her way to Kodiak. The idea was piloted by a few Alaskan schools and by the 1984-1985 school year 26 districts were involved. KPBSD was one of those districts and had a state-winning team from Kenai Junior High that year.
KPBSD students, once again, competed valiantly in district and state battles. This year’s battles included 61 teams across four grade levels for students in grades 3-12. Students in grades K-2 can also participate, but only at the building level.
Battle of the Books is a statewide reading and comprehension program sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians. The goals of the program are to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension, and promote academic excellence. All this is accomplished through a game-show style competition known simply as “BOB”.

Grades K-12 compete


Lists of books are chosen and questions are written for all the grade levels. Students read the books (12 titles for Grades 3-6 and 10 titles for Grades 7-12), quiz each other, learn title and author information, and compete in teams of no more than three students attempting to score as many points as possible answering questions related to the books. Battle questions all begin with the words, “In which book…”. Students are allowed thirty seconds to confer with team members and come up with an answer which is always the title and author of a book on the list.

Compete via videoconference

All KPBSD battles took place using Skype for Business to video conference. Students loved being able to “see” the competition. In addition to using Skype for battles, a Battle “Canvas” course was created where coaches accessed all needed battle materials and information and discussions took place. Google was used during battles to report scores and chat with Battle Central (Karla Barkman) when needed. Battle coaches were exposed to many different technologies again this year and did a fabulous job. Our KPBSD student battlers did an awesome job as well. District Battles were held in February with state battles in early March.
COVER WHE 5_6 team Celebrates first place at District competition

Congratulations to the following teams that made it to the final round of KPBSD district competition!

Grades 3 & 4

  • 1st Place – Seward Elementary
  • 2nd Place – Soldotna Connections
  • 3rd Place – Aurora Borealis Charter School
  • 4th Place – Tustumena Elementary

Grades 5 & 6

  • 1st Place – West Homer Elementary
  • 2nd Place (Tie) – Cooper Landing
  • 2nd Place (Tie) – Fireweed
  • 2nd Place (Tie) – Sterling Elementary

Middle School

  • 1st Place – Homer Middle
  • 2nd Place – Kenai Middle
  • 3rd Place – Seward Middle
  • 4th Place – Nikiski Middle

High School

  • 1st Place – Cooper Landing
  • 2nd Place (Tie) – Nikiski High
  • 2nd Place (Tie) – Soldotna High
  • 4th Place – Voznesenka School

COVER Cooper Landing - HS

State Battles were held the beginning of March. Each of our first place district teams went on to state competition and did a great job finishing! Congratulations to:

  • Seward Elementary (Grades 3 & 4) – 7th place out of 32 teams
  • West Homer Elementary (Grades 5 & 6) – 5th place out of 35 teams
  • Homer Middle (Middle School) – 3th place out of 27 teams
  • Cooper Landing (High School) – 7th place out of 20 teams

COVER SewardEL 3rd 4th battle of the books(1)

Battle of the Books 2018 photo album on Facebook

Book lists for next year’s battles were chosen by librarians, teachers, and battle coaches at a title selection workshop held during the State Library Conference before spring break. The new lists can be found at the State Battle of the Book’s website.
Article contributed by Karla Barkman, District Battle of the Books Coordinator.

The 2017 Book Battles!

The winning KPBSD Battle of the Books teams will represent KPBSD at state battles the beginning of March!
#golden #AKlearns
Congratulations!
Grades 3- 4: Connections Homeschool
Grades 5- 6, and Middle School: Cooper Landing School
High School: Voznesenka School

Soldotna Connections 3-4 Grade Team
Grades 3 – 4 – Soldotna Connections

 
Cooper Landing Grades 5-6
Grades 5 – 6 – Cooper Landing School

 
Middle School – Cooper Landing School
Middle School – Cooper Landing School

 
High School – Voznesenka School
High School – Voznesenka School

Voznesenka HS reading
High School – Voznesenka School

 

The 2016 Book Battle

Many educators think of February as Love of Reading Month, so it is especially fitting that Battle of the Books takes place during that month. Sixty-five KPBSD teams participated in this year’s district competition. All did an awesome job. Most of the battles took place using audio conference technology with the final round teams competing using video conference. All agreed it was an added bonus to “see” the other teams.
Congratulations to the following teams that made it to the final round of competition!

Cooper Landing School
Cooper Landing School

Battle of the Books is a statewide reading and comprehension program sponsored by the Alaska Association of School Librarians. The goals of the program are to encourage and recognize students who enjoy reading, broaden reading interests, increase reading comprehension, and promote academic excellence. All this is accomplished through a game-show style competition known simply as “BOB”.
Lists of books are chosen and questions are written for all the grade levels. Students read the books (fifteen titles for Grades 3-6 and twelve titles for Grades 7-12), quiz each other, learn title and author information, and compete in teams of no more than three students attempting to score as many points as possible answering questions related to the books. Battle questions all begin with the words, “In which book”. Students are allowed thirty seconds to confer with team members and come up with an answer which is always the title and author of a book on the list.
Our district-winning teams moved on to the Alaska state competitions held the end of February. Our teams represented our district well placing as follows.

  • High School – Soldotna High School tied for 5th place (24 teams)
  • Middle School – Nikiski Middle-High School, 7th place (29 teams)
  • Grades 5/6 – K-Beach Elementary, 11th place (35 teams)
  • Grades 3/4 – Cooper Landing School, 3rd place (34 teams)

Book lists for next year’s battles were chosen by members of the Alaska Association of School Librarians at their state conference on March 12, 2016. The list is posted at the State Battle of the Book’s website.
View photos of all the teams on the KPBSD Facebook page, 2016 Battle of the Books photo album
Story contributed by Karla Barkman, District Battle of the Books Coordinator
 

Kaleidoscope School of Arts & Science
Kaleidoscope School of Arts & Science

West Homer Elementary
West Homer Elementary