March Madness Reading Month
I love March because it is Reading Month! Thanks to my incredible colleague, Ms. Jennings, we had an incredible month of activities fostering the joy of reading and literacy with all of our crew! From Kindergarten to 8th grade, the joy of reading was evident!
School wide, we had a competition between crews to come out on top for reading month.
Each crew selected a College or University to represent and then they competed by participating in reading with reading logs, our Drop Everything And Read moments at Community Crew, door decorating contest, and a spirit week during our last full week of school in March! Students got drop in prizes of pencil cases and notebooks during the week for bringing in their reading logs and keeping up with the competition! The victors ended up being Mrs. Russell’s crew in 2nd grade, Ms. Roundtree’s crew in 5th grade and Brother Leif’s crew in 6th grade, but the competition was FIERCE! The winning crews will get a movie party (featuring a book to movie adaptation film) after spring break.
We also had another favorite event with buddy reading during Spirit Week!
My kindergarten crew was paired with Ms. Wassmer’s crew and it was lovely to see siblings come together for buddy reading and for new friendships to be made. Overheard in Kindergarten A later on that day, “My third grader was so cool!” Enjoy some pictures of the other crews enjoying pairing up!
The last piece of reading month that is always so amazing (besides the Scholastic Book Fair) is getting adults to come in and be guest or mystery readers.
My crew was blessed to have two parents come in to read to us but I know that other crews participated in the fun of this! Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Russell made sure to have guest readers from both the DAA community and the greater Detroit community. The Detroit Ombudsman made an appearance as well as our own amazing Operations Team Members, Ms. Alexa and Brother Elijah. If you’re an adult and you’ve got some extra time, I encourage you to come in and read at an elementary school near you (DAA would love to have you) next March! You’ll have a self esteem boost because the students will be in awe of you! Again, overheard in second grade, “Is Ms. Alexa an actress?” after her visit.
Reading Month was a smashing success at DAA in 2024 and I cannot wait to see how we top ourselves next year. Dear reader, will you be a part of it? We hope so. Until then, keep reading because readers are leaders.