NORTH LEWISBURG – Students, faculty and staff at Triad Elementary spent the past four weeks taking part in activities centered around National Reading Month. To culminate the month-long event, grandparents/grandfriends were invited to the school on Thursday morning to help share in one final reading-related activity before spring break.
“We wanted to open our school to our community and families,” said Meredith Ford, Triad Elementary Title I teacher/coordinator and literacy coach. “We think it is extremely important to build relationships between school and home. We also believe we can learn from the knowledge and experiences of our senior generation.”
In an effort to make sure every student had the chance to invite someone, Ford said, the decision was made to open the event up to “grandfriends,” so some parents, aunts and uncles were in attendance.
“We didn’t want students without grandparents to feel left out,” she said. “We are also aware of how diverse families are and wanted to accommodate our students.”
During the 45-minute event, over 200 grandparents/grandfriends filled classrooms throughout the building and were treated, along with the students, to a breakfast consisting of powdered donuts, fruit, apple juice and milk. Following breakfast, a brief storytime was held and everyone was invited to make a craft.
In Janet Mroczkowski’s kindergarten class, students and their guests made Easter crafts before gathering on the reading rug for storytime, which featured Mary Quigley’s “Granddad’s Fishing Buddy.”
Prior to Thursday’s event, students took part in numerous activities throughout the month that brought attention to National Reading Month. These activities included guest readers from the community, reading-related theme days, surprise book giveaways, a reading raffle, and “Spread Reading Cheer Throughout the Community” – a week-long event in which students decorated brown paper grocery bags with messages and pictures highlighting their love of reading. The bags were taken to nearby grocery stores where customers received their groceries in one-of-a-kind bags, each signed by the student who decorated it.
