First Annual ZervCott!

This year I decided to extend my Caldecott lessons to include voting in a Mock Caldecott election for my 1-4 grade classes.  It was great fun.  The Caldecott Medal is awarded each year to the illustrator of the "most distinguished American picture book for children." We learned about the history of the award, looked at past winners, and spent time looking through potential winners as a class, individually, and in small groups.  I collected 24 books from our school library and public library; culled from other Mock Caldecott lists I researched, librarian reviews and my own personal favorites.  This was our master list:

Erin's mock-caldecott-2011 book montage

Erin's favorite books »

Neville

A Nation's Hope
Shout Shout
Mouse and Lion
Blackout *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Stars
Grandpa Green *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Swirl By Swirl
Orani
Blue Chicken
Red Sled
Subway Story
Naamah
Drawing from Memory
A Butterfly is Patient
Perfect Square
All the Water
Bone Dog
A Ball for Daisy *2012 Caldecott Medal Winner!
Me Jane *2012 Caldecott Honor Book!
Balloons Over Broadway
Ice
The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred
The Watcher

I tallied the votes for each class and each grade level so I could share those results with them - and then I took the grand totals (332 total votes!) and revealed our TOP 6 (Grandpa Green, Bone Dog, Blackout, Me Jane, Blue Chicken, and Swirl By Swirl). [What I thought was fantastic was that of our ZervCott Top 6 list - 3 of them received Caldecott Honor Medals!]  Finally, all of the 1st and 2nd grade classes voted AGAIN for just one favorite from the Top 6 list.  First graders were also tasked with designing medals to be used for the ZervCott medal and honors.  It was wonderful to see how invested they were in each book and the deliberation they went through.  Some were really hard pressed to make a decision.  As a final step, a class of 5th graders helped me chose the winning ZervCott medal designs by using their SmartBoard clickers to respond to a poll I created with 6 finalist designs.

Here are the final results for the first annual ZervCott Awards!

ZervCott Honor Books (and their medals):

Medal by Sylvie

Medal by Annie

And the 2012 ZervCott winner!

Medal by Kettie