A Tournament to Remember

This year, the 5th graders of MMS made a March Madness Book Tournament located at the end of the 5th grade hallway. You will find a bracket of books. Books were nominated by the students.  It also has lines showing what book(s) are against what book(s).

The bracket for "Book Madness"

In the end, It was a tie between Out of My Mind by Sharon M. Draper and Because of Mr. Terupt by Rob Buyea.  

We have Ms. Kepple and Mr. Salsich to thank for this awesome idea.  “It started from using March Madness in Language Arts, and we decided to turn it into a book tournament,” says Mr. Salsich, 5th grade teacher of Social Studies and Language Arts.  “I wasn’t sure.  I thought that they would like it because they didn’t have to do any work.  All that they had to do was vote.  They didn’t have to explain their vote or read the book.  And there was the competition too.” Mr. Salsich added. And how did they really react?  They had no idea what was going on!  There were a lot of questions.  Once the first round was over, however, they really began to latch on to the idea.  

“I was excited.  I liked nominating a book even though it didn’t get in," said Cate, a 5th grader at MMS.  "I thought it was a cool way to celebrate March Madness.”  

Overall, it seems that this was a great idea that will be remembered by this year’s fifth graders.

Written By Bobbie Doherty