As part of the “Read Across America” week-long celebration March 3-7 at Kelley School, students and staff spent a lot more time reading than usual.
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Turns out the total time the grades 3-5 school read was 13,310 minutes.
"This event is important to me because it is nice to stop and read for pure enjoyment. It's always fun when we get the entire school involved in an event. Students and staff read in school and read as a whole class during instruction time and individually during Independent Reading times. Some classes and students participated in Buddy Reading with flashlights and Book Tastings,” explained Alisa Elder, Kelley School Instructional Coach.
The week-long event focusing on literacy was planned by fifth grade teacher Lisa Zalacca, AIS reading teacher Carolyn Cronmiller, third grade teacher Alicia Marchionda and Elder.
"Organizing Read Across America Week is important to me because reading is so vital to our everyday lives,” Marchionda said. “Reading expands the mind, allows for creative thinking and helps to give you a greater perspective. We wanted to bring our Kelley School Community together to celebrate all of our hard work and our love for reading, not only during this week, but each day.”
Zalacca said : "This is the ninth year we have been able to celebrate reading as a whole school community and each year our students' love for reading grows. Our staff works hard to provide positive reading experiences throughout our week and the rest of the school year. I'm so thankful for this experience with our students."
Winning homerooms were Marchionda’s class with 3,935 minutes read; Sarah Weyman’s fourth grade class with 3,135 minutes; and Tammy Chalifoux’s fifth grade class logging 6,240 minutes read. Their wins earned their rooms a pizza party.
Top three readers in the school were: fifth grader Sophia Pellegrini from Chalifoux’s class won a $30 gift card; third grader Braxton Sanon from Marchionda’s class won a $20 gift card; and fourth grader Anna Kerr won a $10 gift card.
And the 19 other winning students from each of the other school’s homerooms “celebrated” their literary feat by pieing whipped cream “pies” into the faces of some brave staff members at an after-school event in the gym March 13.
It was a blast.
“For the culminating event, all classes came to the gym. The teachers sat in a circle, some with shower caps and garbage bags on,” Elder said. “Student winners were called up and were able to choose the staff they wanted to pie.”
Third grade teachers Elizabeth Bradstreet, Ashley Phillips and Andrew Carbone, fourth grade teachers Ashley Reome and Ashley Dean, fifth grade teachers Zalacca and Samantha Martin, Speech and Language pathologist Shelli Sutton and Kelley Principal Nate Goodness got pied by students.
“At the end, Mr. Goodness snuck up and pied (Assistant Principal) Mrs. Sullivan. Laughter and cheers filled the gymnasium,” Elder said.
“It was a really fun way to cap off “Read Across America” week,” said Sullivan, who emceed the event. “The kids who won from each class loved pieing their teachers.”
Students enjoyed extra reading and the pieing finish.
Fourth grader Liem McCloskey said: "It felt good remembering what Dr. Seuss did for us."
Fourth Grader Adelaide Petrus said: "It was so much fun. I picked Mrs. Zalacca."