Rodolfo Centeno Elementary School, self-appointed district leaders in endorsing the Texas Bluebonnet Awards, strives to promote the Texas Bluebonnet nominees to both faculty and students in order to increase their interaction with great literature. As part of this effort, Centeno Elementary has proposed several special projects for the purpose of promoting and celebrating this state initiative and increasing learning experiences. Both students and teachers will have opportunities to not only respond to the literature in both blog and wiki format but will also participate in redesigned versions of "Are You Smarter than a Bluebonnet Reader" and "The Battle of the Bluebonnet Books" competitions, culminating in a "Texas Bluebonnet Reading Relay". Included in this proposal is the plan for all projects.
Address issues and needs of staff and students
through curriculum integration of technology and information literacy for students and staff.
Inspire a love of reading by introducing students to literary forms such as stories, poems, and information books through practices such as individual dialogue and reading motivation programs.
Two faculty team captains volunteer and team assignments are made from a random drawing of all names of participating teachers. Teachers from all grade levels are encouraged to participate. Between the months of September through April, members of each team are displayed on a bulletin board along with the books that they have read to their classes. Faculty team captains are responsible for making sure that all Bluebonnet nominees have been read by at least one member of each team should be an expert on one title. During the month of May, prior to the “Battle of the Bluebonnet Books” between students, the two Faculty teams compete against each other in front of the student body audience.
Process for “Are You Smarter than a Bluebonnet Reader”- Faculty Competition
1. Teams will flip a coin to see who goes first. That team will be given first chance to respond to randomly drawn questions.
2. A guest “game show” host will read each question and the librarian will act as "referee".
3. The team shall have 30 seconds after the reading of the question to give a response through the team Captain. Only the answer from the Captain will heard and recorded. Teams are encouraged to confer before giving a response. Only the first answer the Captain gives will be acceptable--the team cannot use up the time left to make other guesses.
4. If the answer is correct, the team is awarded 5 points.
5. If a team gives an incorrect answer, the opposing team may pick up points if they can answer the question. The question will be repeated to the opposing team, which will then have 10 seconds in which to come up with their answer. NOTE: If the opposing team does not answer correctly, play does NOT pass back to the other team.
6. If a team has begun its response before time is called, it will be allowed to complete it.
7. In the event of a tie, questions will be drawn from the question bank until a winner can be determined.
After 24 questions have been asked, the “game show” host will announce the final score and a winner will be declared. The winning faculty team will be sent on to the next round against a student team comprised of randomly selected students from both student teams. Both contests may take place on the same day.
The compettion will be run following the same procedures as the "Are You Smarter than a Bluebonnet Reader".
If there are challenges to a question, an answer is considered correct as long as the librarian can discern it.
Although both contests may take place on the same day, the student "Battle of the Bluebonnet Books" game should be coordinated separately.
Procedures for the “Texas Bluebonnet Reading Relay”
Students in classes participating in the Texas Bluebonnet Awards will compete in relay races against other participating classes. The “Texas Bluebonnet Reading Relay” are races based on the Texas Bluebonnet list. For example, last year, for The Earth Dragon Awakes, one of the relay races included the human wheelbarrow race. For the book Year of the Dog students had to race to pick up 10 fortune cookies and place them in a bowl using chopsticks with one hand tied behind their backs. For Chicken Boy, students participated in the 50 yard dash and the egg on a spoon relay. Each title has one or two relay races that correspond with each storyline. Each class makes up one team, and a relay race is set up so that all students participate in at least one event. Events are selected according to the number of students in each class. So if there are 17 students in one class but 18 in a competing class, 18 events are selected.
Process:
This form will go out to teachers and students participating in the events.
2009 TBA Reading Relay Announcement.doc
Have teachers fill out this form filling in the blank spaces with the names of participants for each race.
2009TBA_Reading_Relay_Events.doc
2009 Texas Bluebonnet Reading Relays