Reading Month!
Another March has come to a close, and another amazing month of showcasing reading and how fundamental and joyful it is has happened. As a bookworm myself, I love this month because I get a chance to see the joy of reading and storytelling on our students’ faces. So much happened at DAA this past month both in my classroom and throughout the whole school.
Mystery Readers
After 10 years of teaching, I finally had the chance to really make mystery readers happen in the classroom. For the uninitiated, this means that you have a guest come in and read to students, generally giving them a few hints as to who it might be but letting them guess/have it be a mystery. While I didn’t get to have all the parents come and read that I wanted to due to snow days and general scheduling challenges, having two parents come in to read to our crew was magical! Kindergarten A Crew was so excited to have Ms. Clarissa and Ms. Liz come in and read to us. Ms. Clarissa even brought in her own story from home Ten Little Chicks and left us with a special sweet treat.
Librarian Visit
This year we again had a Librarian from the Detroit Public Library Redford Branch come to read and sing to us. Ms. Grace Ward not only told interactive stories, but she also sang songs! I still remember parts of the “Three B’s of Music Rap” that she shared. In case you weren’t sure, the three B’s are Brahms, Beethoven and Bach. It was a unique treat and reminded us all of the joy of libraries and librarians. Below is a picture of first grade enjoying the musical tales.
Door Decorating Contest
The door decorating is always a fun challenge for crew leaders and students alike. We are trying to highlight our newest habit of courage, so the theme for this year’s decorations was “Courage in Literature.” From Kindergarten to 6th grade, art and the leadership and operations teams, we had creative doors showcasing courage. As crews, we voted for our favorite doors and the 6th graders were victorious with their amazing space themed door.
Spirit Week, Buddy Reading and School-wide DEAR at Crew
The final week of March that school was in session was JAM-PACKED with events. We had our full week of reading themed spirit days, including the classic “Character Day” and pajama day to close out the week. Check out these friends paying homage to Arthur, Elsa and Anna from Frozen and the book President of the Whole Sixth Grade.
Mr. Lemons had the inspired idea to do a school-wide Drop Everything and Read as our initiative at Monday Crew and the results were amazing. From 8th graders buddy reading with kindergarteners to Ms. Underwood sharing a story with a student, it was so heartwarming and a great community building way to start the week.
Finally, we had a month-long challenge to see which crews could read the most within the month. We had different grade-bands competing against each other to make it more fair. Kindergarten and 1st grade crews were counting the number of books read, 2nd and 3rd grade were tallying their pages read and 4th-8th were counting up their minutes read. Kindergarten A (Ms. Bonaparte), Second Grade A (Ms. Russell) and Fifth Grade (Ms. Wilson) were victorious and will be getting books as a reward for out-reading the other crews. Until the next Reading Month, keep reading!