A Mock Caldecott would be exciting in a classroom for several reasons.  Enthusiasm for reading will grow inside children as they discover different elements of books.  Also, it’s an excellent team building process that engages all the children in a class unlike band or sports so I look forward to one day facilitating a Mock Caldecott.  In this activity children review nominated distinguished American authored picture books, vote for their favorite book, enjoy the winners the voting produces and like the real Caldecott process honor books that did not win.

However, I can see that time will be a challenging factor.  These events are lengthy as far as the number of weeks invested and consume precious time in a school day so I will welcome lots of help the first few times from others as ideas and ‘what not to do’s’ will be a time saver.  Another problem I can see is the issue I faced just this week in trying to locate the new releases.  I have contacted 2 City Libraries and one school library and have not been able to get my hands on not even one of the books from this 2016 list classroom/mock-book-awards-class-6-fall-2016/ (they are all checked out!!!).  I did put energy into pricing several if the books on Amazon and found that they average near $10.00 per book. I have not come across any books that were published in 2016 that I can remember that is, that I would add as Caldecott nominee.

After reading the different lists of nominees 3 books I would like to read from them are;

we-found-a-hat

We Found A Hat (Hat Trilogy #3) by Jon Klassen

thunderboy

Thunder Boy Jr. by Sherman Alexie, Yuyi Morales

king-baby

King Baby by Kate Beaton

Below is one link that I found helpful in learning more about the Caldecott because it is large discussion on picture books.  I liked the reviews and feedback from those who are familiar with children’s literature.

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/16993-mock-caldecott-2017

The final link that I found helpful to learn more about the Caldecott is http://100scopenotes.com/2015/11/11/mock-caldecott-2016/ this link shared more about how the weekly scheduling could be formatted.  I also found out that there is a video of the real event that can be shown to children, I think that would be a perfect closing for the activity.  One other thing I learned while visiting the site was how to handle different grade levels, like kindergartners rating the books with number (I would use stars) and older grades writing actual reviews.

I learned a few really good ideas in this exercise did anyone else learn?

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9 thoughts on “Mock Caldecott”

  1. You made a great point when you explained that a Mock Caldecott is a team building experience. It definitely takes the whole class to participate in the discussion. It’s a great way to hear from all students on what they like and dislike. Great point!

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  2. I really like how you mentioned that by hosting a Mock Caldecott in your classroom you’re contributing to your student’s team building skills! I think this is an excellent point, and one I hadn’t previously thought of! Great post!

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  3. I was able to read “Thunder Boy Jr” and I liked it quite a lot! I hope you have a chance to read this book as well! I wanted to read “We Found A Hat” but sadly my library did not carry it :(. I learned a lot from this exercise this week and I will be implementing this in my future classroom.

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  4. I read that you think the Mock Caldecott activity would encompass several weeks. Every site I found except for one went into great lengths to list out the daily activities for this type of project, and they also covered a period of several weeks. I simply do not have the time available in class to follow these types of lesson plans either. I think breaking the activities up and modifying the activities might be a way I plan to use a Mock Cadecott in my classroom, perhaps only a few of the activities instead of the daily-for-many-weeks activities. I found that finding current Caldecott nominees is difficult, as well, and was fortunate to get my hands on the one I did. “We Found a Hat” was at the top of my list too, but was not available at any of the local libraries. I also searched Amazon for book prices and found that buying 20 of them might cost anywhere from $200 to $400 depending on the books. Yow. I liked your list of Top Three Choices.

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  5. I read “Thunder Boy Jr” earlier this semester before I even knew that it was on the Mock Caldecott lists, and thought that it was wonderful! I am glad that you decided to give it a shot, and I hope you thought it was as great as I did! Also, I want to read “We Found a Hat” very badly, but couldn’t find it this week! I hope that you enjoyed it!

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  6. I also thought that time would be a challenging factor. It would take a lot of time to have and it would also be a lot of extra work for the teacher. If it isn’t fixed into the curriculum then it would be a lot of outside time and work and teachers don’t have a lot of that as it is.

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