Planning Battle of the Books Team Meetings

Please meet with your team monthly. Regular meetings help to keep the team on track to be ready for the Final Battle. After school meetings should be scheduled for 45 minutes to 1 hour. Please remember to bring a copy of your team's emergency contact information to meetings and remind parents to fill out the dismissal form on the Alden School website for an after school Battle of the Books meeting. 

Some students may benefit from using a book report style organizer  or graphic organizer as they read. Please feel free to share these templates with your team. 

MEETING AT ALDEN SCHOOL
Alden School has space reserved at the school for team meetings on the following dates. Please note, these are the only dates available to schedule Battle of the Books meetings at the school. 

Teams should meet in the lobby at dismissal and go to their assigned space for each meeting. Please do not go into classrooms or areas of the school that are not assigned to your team. If your team will miss a meeting at Alden School to meet at an alternate location, please email Ms. McEvoy-Duane at mmcevoyduane@duxbury.k12.ma.us prior to your meeting day so she will not reserve a space for your team on that day.

ALTERNATE MEETING LOCATIONS
The Duxbury Free Library has meeting rooms that can reserved online approximately two months in advance HERE. Team Leaders should meet their team in the school lobby at dismissal and walk together to the library to ensure that all students have been dismissed to the Battle of the Books meeting. Meetings can be scheduled after school or on the weekends at a Team Leader's house or another central location that works for the team. Please communicate with your team about meeting location, meeting schedule and directions where to pick up students at the end of each meeting.

MEETING ACTIVITIES

Each team leader decides how to organize the meeting. Meetings can include book discussion, games and/or activities. Leaders do not need to read all the books! 

• Start with an icebreaker or quick game.  

• Ask students to give a brief description of the book they read

• Would they recommend it to another student? Why or why not?

• Print off the questions provided on this website to direct discussion. 

• Consider bringing water and a small snack for the students to enjoy before starting the meeting.  

• Add in a fun activity!  

Kahoot - www.kahoot.com

Kahoot allows you to create online quizzes to share with your teams, for free.  It’s easy to set up and you can create quizzes ranging from general literary questions to specific questions if you have read a book as a group. Many books already have a Kahoot set up! It’s a lot of fun!

Quizlet - https://quizlet.com

Quizlet has study guides and quizzes available on many book titles.  

Roll & Retell
Team leaders roll dice and ask team members to answer a corresponding question about the book.  

ICEBREAKERS

Fun ways to kick off your meetings!

Alphabet Name
Example: My name is Apple Anna, Bobby Banana. Students introduce themselves with a word that also shares the same first letter as their first name. Other students then have to repeat the name and the word of each preceding student as they introduce themselves.

My Favorite
This icebreaker is simple enough: Students simply identify something that’s ‘their favorite.’ ("My favorite kind of book to read is.. "‘My favorite pizza topping is…’ or, ‘My favorite game to play with friends is…)

Pick a Superpower
If they had a superpower what would it be?

On-the-Spot Story
Get those creative juices flowing! Sit with a small group and spend 10 minutes creating a story on the spot. Each person contributes one sentence of the story, and the only rules (aside from only adding appropriate content) is that the story must continue for the allotted amount of time. The story can be silly, adventurous, or go wherever kids’ imaginations take them! 

Would You Rather
Ask questions to get the students talking. Ask them to make up their own!
Would you rather play sports or watch them?
Would you rather be part of the Incredibles family or the Weasley family?
Would you rather live in a world of legos or a world of cartoons?
Would you rather have a pet dinosaur or a pet dragon?
Would you rather live in a house made of cheese or a house made of cookie dough?
Would you rather be a mouse or an elephant?
Would you rather be invisible or be able to fly?
Would you rather live at Disney World or Sea World?