Winona Area Public SchoolsJefferson Elementary students and staff join in on the March Madness Tournament. Instead of a bracket of basketball teams, they have a bracket of books! The March Madness Tournament of Books started four years ago and has been a fun school wide project that all students and staff really get excited about. It always brings about cheers and cries of disappointment when certain book choices do or do not continue onto the next round in the hunt for the title of “2019 Book of the Year”.
In January, staff research and gather book nominates for the tournament. This allows kids to have fun, enjoy new books in the library and instills the love and enjoyment of reading. Each week when classes visit the library Mrs. Bestul, Jefferson Elementary Media Secretary reads them a story from the tournament. She explains that in March we will be having a Book Tournament to vote on what book we think is the Book of the Year!
Then it’s bracket time. Staff print off pictures of the book covers and randomly assign them seed numbers. After the books are placed on a paper bracket, students and staff get the first peek at the book match-ups and dream of picking the winning book! But they don’t stop there, no, they put a HUGE bracket on the wall down by the lunchroom so all kids can see it throughout the day. It’s a pretty big topic of conversation in the breakfast and lunch lines while the kids wait.
Finally when the tournament starts, an announcement is made about the game, telling classes to write their votes on their ballot, and put it in the ballot box on the library counter by 12:00 p.m. sharp! The votes are collected, tallied, and the results are kept secret until the next morning when they are shared over the intercom. As the results are shared you can hear cheers and groans from all over the school! Once the cheers and groans have subsided, the next game is announced and the fun continues until there are two books left. At that point, everyone gets their own vote and they tally how many students and staff vote for the two remaining books. One will earn the title of the “2019 Book of the Year” and the other one will be the runner up.
When the tournament is complete the whole school celebrates the winner, take down the bracket and pack everything up for another year. However, with the book covers we have created posters of past tournaments and the Book of the Year! 1st grade teacher Jenna Veenendaal stated, “It’s so much fun to read the stories with the kids and share this experience with them, and I can tell they enjoy it as well. As for this year…we are only a few games into the tournament, but I know there is LOADS of fun ahead.”
Who do you think the winner be?
The Three Little Super Pigs, The Creepy Carrots, The Interrupting Chicken, The Wonky Donkey, Dragons Love Tacos, The Day the Crayons Quit, The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes, Skippyjon Jones Class Action, Diary of a Sider, Tacky in Trouble, The Gingerbread Girl, Pigeon Finds a Hotdog, Knuffle Bunny, The Color Monster, Olivia, Babies in the Bayou, or Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good Very Bad Day!