The best ideas come to me when I am avoiding other work, so yay this is going to be fun! I want to inspire reading all year long, and this is a fun way to do that in your preschool class or at home! Getting young children excited to read can sometimes be a challenge; this makes reading exciting, and you can adjust it to any level. You can even do it with chapter books with older siblings. Use this picture book tournament as an in-class activity or send it home for your students to do with their families. They are fantastic send home activities to get your students reading at home and can be done using any books, even books in other languages if English is not spoken at home.

You set the first round of books as a group and read and determine a winner
You send the bracket home blank and have your students and their family choose eight books to put into the tournament. There is a link below for a send home instruction sheet as well.

Here is how you use the bracket:

Gather up 8 picture books.

Round 1

Write their titles in the first round ( green) bracket. If you are doing this as a class each day at circle time read the two books in every pair. Have the students vote for which book they liked best.

Write the winner of that in the blue rectangle.

Repeat this for the next three days.

Round 2 – Semi-Finals!

Re-read the winners from round one over the next two days. The first two are against each other and the next two. Have the children vote to determine a winner. Write the winners of each faceoff in the purple boxes.

Picture Book Tournament 2018