By Brenda Erdahl
I Love to Read Month has come and gone at Maple Lake Elementary School where students met their goals and had a lot of fun.
The month-long event started on a good note when a record-breaking crowd turned out for the annual Rise and Read kick-off, Feb. 1. Dubbed “a reading Luau” to keep with the month’s theme “Splish Splash it’s a Reading Bash,” the event encouraged parents and students to get up early for donuts and a bit of reading fun before school started.
From there, the fun only got better. Before the month was out, students enjoyed dress up days, a hallway decorating contest, games, and plenty of opportunity to read. To make reading even more fun, staff designated a classroom as the official “reading room” and they decorated it to the nines with a Hawaiian theme. Throughout the month, students lounged on beach chairs with a good book at “The Mermaid Cove,” “Tidal Wave Beach” and more.
The main event, which could earn students a school-wide party, was the One Book One School challenge. All MLE students received a copy of Nim’s Island courtesy of the local PTA and each weeknight they were asked to read one chapter. A Reading Choice Board guided families in their efforts and gave fun prompts like, read with a mustache on or read to a stuffed animal or family pet. The goal of the challenge was to encourage reading at home and build home libraries, Media Specialist Sarah Thomas said.
Throughout the month students were asked to record time spent reading at home on the Reading Choice Board and return it to their teacher for rewards. By the end of the month, 300 boards were turned in which meant the entire school earned the right to an end-of-the-month movie and Bingo Day.
Earlier in the month students had rallied together to raise money for Bingo prizes by bringing in spare change. In all, they collected more than $450, which meant they had some pretty nice prizes to win come party time, Thomas said. The big prizes were two scooters given away at the end of the day.
In addition to the school-wide party, Mrs. Zimny’s class was the only class where every single student turned in the Reading Choice Board, which meant they received their own class pizza party.