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After years running a Mock Caldecott I found that our students were becoming less interested in the books we judged collectively each year. It seemed like I might be continuing this whole school shared experience more because I personally enjoyed it rather than listening to our students. So I decided to change things up and run a humor award competition instead. These are the most frequently requested types of picture books, so it made sense to feature them. Students have loved the change and I'm excited to explore the year's funniest picture books with our whole school for years to come.
I select eight books for our competition by keeping my eyes and ears peeled all year as I read and hear about new picture books. I also rely heavily on the Funny Picture Books list that Betsy Bird puts out as part of her fantastic 31 Days, 31 Lists project every year.
Once the titles are determined I create one scoresheet for our 2nd & 3rd graders that asks for a rating of 1-5 as well as their notes, written or drawn. The 4th and 5th grade scoresheet asks for ratings in four separate categories before students calculate a total score for each title.
I make a BIG DEAL about using a pencil so that we can go back and adjust our scores at any time. We might decide to later increase or decrease the score of an early book and that is a-okay.
We read two titles per week, making comparisons and discussing different styles of humor as we go. When it comes time to vote, I have students finish a few sentences about the book that they have decided to vote for. Then we spend a few minutes reading these sentences to other classmates. Without knowing it students have engaged in several rehearsals of what will be their script for a video they'll make with Seesaw, Flip, or our current video creation EdTech tool of the moment. We spend the rest of the class period creating these videos and voting with a sticker (color-coded by grade) on our public voting bulletin board. A great side benefit is that this display turns into a wonderful conversation piece for students when they come through the library with parents for conferences.
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