Submitted by Julie Purdy, Librarian/Media Specialist at RSU 16.
It began as a discussion at one of our district library meetings. The elementary schools in RSU16 often highlight Read Across America Day on or around March 2nd; however, because it has traditionally been associated with Dr. Seuss’s birthday, the middle school and high school have never really participated. This year, we decided that it would be fun to bring together kids and books and celebrate reading district-wide in honor of Read Across America Day!
We decided to embrace the Dr. Seuss theme for our inaugural “Read Across RSU16 Week”! Our goals for this event were to promote Read Across America, promote reading in general by showing our students that it is important and fun for everyone to read, and to generate school spirit! We planned a week of activities and fun to promote our culminating event: On Friday, March 8th, EVERYONE in RSU16, from our superintendent to our preschoolers, dropped everything and just read a book from 10:00-10:20!
To celebrate and promote the week and to get our students fired up for our district-wide reading time, each school had spirit dress up days.
Spirit Dress Up Days at the elementary schools:
Monday: Horton Hears A Who – Wear Blue
Tuesday: Green Eggs and Ham – Wear Green
Wednesday: Thing 1 and Thing 2 – Twin Day
Thursday: Fox in Socks – Wear Red
Friday: The Lorax – Wear Orange
Spirit Dress Up Days at the Middle School and High School:
Monday: One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish – Wear Red or Blue
Tuesday: Cat in the Hat Day – Wear Stripes and/or a Hat
Wednesday: Thing 1 and Thing 2 – Twin Day
Thursday: Fox in Socks – Wear Crazy or Mismatched Socks
Friday: Oh, the Places You’ll Go – Wear a College T-shirt or Sweatshirt
Throughout the week, all schools promoted Read Across RSU16 Week in fun ways. Teachers and librarians at the elementary level read Dr. Seuss books all week. At the high school, we read a page of a Dr. Seuss book over the intercom, and the first five students to post the correct answer on the library Instagram page won a prize! Younger students decorated cakes and Truffula trees! At Minot Consolidated School, everyone was given a mustache to wear on The Lorax day! The libraries at Minot Consolidated School and Bruce Whittier Middle School/Poland Regional High School also hosted a bulletin board “Seuss Shadow Silhouettes” contest where students could match up the Dr. Seuss character silhouettes with the character names, and the winners received cool prizes! We also had a Cat in the Hat photo booth cut-out so that students could take their pictures as the Cat in the Hat reading a book.
All of the fun during the week led up to the culminating event where everyone district-wide dropped everything to read! It was a lot of fun for everyone, and we hope to make this an annual event!
Check out Poland Regional High School Library’s Instagram page (@prhslibrary) for lots of pictures of Read Across RSU16 Week!