Battle of the Books

We had no idea how the Battle of the Books was going to be like since this was Alex's first time to join. 

There was around 500 people in the stadium of our middle school where it was held.

The kids who join are asked to read a select number of books throughout the year and then pass the comprehension test for each book.  At the end of the year, the kids who qualified from all the elementary schools in our district were grouped into teams.  There were 30 teams for the Third Graders, each team had around 8 kids. Two of the 8 kids came from the same school. Throughout the morning, the teams were taken to different classrooms where they competed with other teams by answering questions about the books they had read.  The top two teams for each grade level with the most correct answers compete in front of everyone to battle for first place. 

Alex's team was in the top two! In the final competition, they had a tie and went through a number of tie breaker questions.  Alex's team missed a question and won second place.  She was very happy. She said she was nervous when they were called for the top two, but the whole experience was just so thrilling and fun for her that she wants to do it again next year.

Here's a video clip of the final competition.  Alex's team is at the right side.  And if you listen closely, you can sometimes hear Zach's side comments/reactions.  I apologize for the shaky and blurry video!



Since they came from different schools, most of the kids would have only met each other for the first time on that day.  They were a terrific bunch. 

The team who won had two kids from our school, and so our principal was very proud of our third graders.