From the WEMTA Battle of the Books site:
The "Battle of the Books program is designed to promote a love of reading among our students. It encourages students to read a variety of books and remember information about the plots, characters, and settings of the books". "It is a fun, academic-based competition that has been very successful in school district's throughout the state in encouraging students to read."
Students form teams of 3 to 4 members and work together to read the 20 chosen titles for the year. Reading may be split up, but teams that work to read all of the titles typically do much better. Student teams keep track of the books they have read on a Google spreadsheet which will be shared with them at our meeting. Students can access the spreadsheet from home if they login to their district account. (Please remember: district email accounts are only to be used for educational purposes.)
Our school library orders 5-6 copies of each chapter book and 2 copies of each picture book from our library budget and through a very gracious donation from our PTO. I encourage you to also utilize the public library to increase your child's access to the books. Depending on the number of students that participate and the length of the books, there is often a waiting list to check them out from school. (Some of the books may also be available on Epic.)Check out the Animoto video below to get a peek at the books we'll be enjoying this year! 
Ready to jump in and get a jump start reading? Here's a link to the 20233-2024 Battle of the Books booklist for your reference and a bookmark with the titles so you can check them off as you read them! Click here!
Our Battle of the Books teams will meet in November and a every other week in December and January during recess to check in, practice matching authors and titles and participate in practice battles. Reading of the books needs to be done on your child's own time at home. They are also able to read their books during independent reading time at school. Please be sure your child understands this commitment before signing up.
Starting the end of January we will have school-based 'mini-battles' which will give student teams practice using the information from the books. Our final school battle, which will take place in mid-February, will be used to determine which team will represent our school in the online state competition which is held the last week of February.
The questions for battles follow this format:
The answers are always the name of the book AND the author so it's important that students know both of these pieces of information. Teams get points for the correct title and the correct author. Students DO NOT have to memorize the spellings of the authors or titles as these will be in a drop down menu for students to choose from.
Check out Quizlet
Not sure which one to read first? Want to know a little about each selection? I've got you covered! Check out the Battle of the Books Digital Library below to find out a little about each of the selections. Click on the book covers to view a YouTube book review or video trailer.
** Click to view trailers for this year's titles **
The questions for battles follow this format:
Question: Name the book in which a young boy goes off to wizardry school.
Students need to read books deeply so they retain information about the plot, character, theme, setting, and other elements of the books. Questions on the final battle are based on these concepts and are not simply matching authors and titles however, knowing this information will make answering the questions easier.
Here are some resources your child can use to practice authors and titles at home.
Print the file and then cut the cards apart. Mix up the pieces and practice matching the author to the book they wrote.
** The share settings for this file are open to anyone on the web.
If you are having trouble accessing the file, please contact your IT department as it is an issue on your end.
Check out Quizlet
You can access Quizlet online or download the free app from the App Store or Google Play. If you download the app, search for WEMTA Battle of the Books Elementary Division for the current year.
There are several options you can try on Quizlet. I would recommend using:
Flip cards back & forth. Authors are on one side, titles are on the other
Fun matching game. See how fast you can match the titles with the authors. If you pick the wrong match, extra time is added. See if you can beat your own time!
As you answer questions correctly more consistently, Learn will advance questions from easier (multiple choice) to harder ones (written response) *Remember students do not have to know how to write responses on the Battle test so this practice option will challenge your child.
There are several options you can try on Quizlet. I would recommend using:
Here's a Quizlet Match game to test your title/author knowledge! Simply click Start Game (This is from last year but will give you an idea of how the site works. An updated game for this year's books will be COMING SOON)
During our Battle meetings I will have Kahoot and Blooket games for us to practice with. We'll also utilize a site called Moodle (a secure, online learning environment) which WEMTA puts together with various practice activities as well.
Here is a practice Battle from a few years ago that you can look at to get a feel for how battle questions will be formatted.
