Orillia’s Keystone Montessori Elementary School recently came out on top in a 15-school Battle of the Books competition at the Orillia Public Library, despite having only 31 students enrolled at its school.
“We did it last year, and we were very far from winning,” said teacher Michele Murray, who organized the competition for her students. “It was a lot of fun, and the kids had a great time. We were not expecting it.”
Competing against fellow elementary schools from around Simcoe County, a team of 10 students spent the school year reading their way through a list of 100 books, where their knowledge was put to the test at the competition last Wednesday.
Specific questions were asked about the books on the students’ reading list, and points were gained for answering questions correctly.
“They were able to answer most of the questions. Some of them were really hard, like the short answer questions were really difficult, and they got they got a point for every question,” Murray said.
Some of Murray’s students read upwards of 25 books.
“We had kept track of who had read which books, so we made it through the vast majority of the list,” Murray said. “We have some really voracious readers in this group. They worked really well together, and they were able to answer most of the questions.”
Given the small size of the school, Murray said it was quite the surprise to see her students come out on top, though she said her students were “pretty keen” on keeping up with the reading throughout the year.
“I was very, very surprised. I wasn't expecting it at all,” agreed one student, who read over 25 of the 100 books in the competition himself.
Murray was also pleased the competition exposed her students to all sorts of new topics.
“It was awesome, and the book list was so varied,” she said. “They were exposed to all different kinds of books, different topics, different subject matter, different themes, and a lot of them probably wouldn't have read those books (otherwise).”
