By By DEB BARBER / Sister Lakes Title 1 Teacher
"Let a Story be Told … Let a Story be Heard … Let a Story be Told Again."
-Jenifer Strauss
Reading Month at Sister Lakes has certainly been exciting!
The theme has been centered on storytelling.
Storyteller Jenifer Strauss spent one morning telling stories with students.
She also gave our own fourth and fifth grade "Sister Lakes Storytellers" some great advice about learning how to tell a story.
The "Sister Lakes Storytellers" were busy sharing their stories with each classroom.
The students each made storytelling sticks (paint sticks donated by Hale's Hardware) to learn how to tell their own stories and designed stamps related to Jenifer Strauss' stories.
The hallway was lined with these colorful stamps showing illustrations of The Three Bears, by kindergarten through second grade students, and The Storylamp, by third through fifth grade students.
To kick off Reading Month a school-wide Pajama Day was held.
Library aide Kay Skogen baked cookies for the entire school to enjoy while students enjoyed stories read by a "guest teacher."
The classes really enjoyed listening to a different teacher read to them all while wearing their pajamas!
Principal Matt Severin surprised students in each class with a special story.
First graders really enjoyed listening to Mr. Severin read The Class from the Black Lagoon, which is a favorite in our library.
First grader Shelby Ison was quoted as saying, "Mr. Severin was funny and I liked it when the teacher was scared on the first day of school."
Sister Lakes Elementary also won the "I Love to Read Challenge" sponsored by WSBT and TCU in South Bend.
We won by a narrow margin with a whopping 5,283 votes!
The students enjoyed listening to John Paul read How Do Dinosaurs Go To School?
After the story WSBT reporters traveled through the hallways admiring all of the student artwork and, in particular, the classroom doors which were decorated like book covers.
All of the students at Sister Lakes were given an "I Love to Read" pencil by WSBT.
It was definitely a memorable day for our school!
On March 26 Sister Lakes hosted its annual Parent Fair.
We were lucky to have writing consultant Shirley Poulton provide a great presentation to parents.
She discussed writing at home.
The Burkett Puppets entertained students in the library while their parents listened to the presentation in the gym.
We are very thankful to the following community businesses that donated door prizes for the Sister Lakes Parent Fair: Sister Lakes Fire Department, Zeke's, Saylor's Pizza, Berrybrook Farms, Curious Kids' Museum, Quality Marathon, Montgomery's Restaurant, Ramada Inn in Watervliet and Safari Joe's Water Park.
Lastly, on March 27 Sister Lakes students combined their musical knowledge with reading during the Music in Our Schools Month assembly.
Each class chose a book, made it into a musical performance piece and debuted it in front of the whole school during the assembly celebrating music and reading together.
Some of the books that were heard included: Jump, Frog, Jump, by Robert Kalan; The Grouchy Lady Bug, by Eric Carle; The Stinky Cheeseman and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, by John Scieska and Lane Smith; and, Zomo the Rabbit. A Trickster Tale from West Africa, by Gerald McDermott.
All of these stories were performed with instruments representing the characters and some with songs and instrumental accompaniment played by the students.
All in all, the month of March was an excellent time to celebrate Reading Month at Sister Lakes Elementary.
There will be no column next week due to spring break.