PLEASANTVILLE — In early March, Pleasantville Elementary School launched a 100,000-minute reading mission outside of school. To help encourage their students, the school mixed a theme with the reading – outer space.
On Friday, the students had a day to celebrate their achievements, full of space-related activities, prizes and fun. Students exceeded their goal, reading more than 115,000 minutes during the month of March.
The goal was part of Reading Week Across America. This is the second year that the school has organized a month of competition and fun related to reading.
This year, the school has created a month of space-related programs, all related to this year’s theme, “Blast Into Reading”.
The staff transformed the cafeteria into an outer space, completely covering the walls with the blackness of the space full of stars, constellations and other spaced-out decorations.
The decorated cafeteria wasn’t just for show. Scattered along the walls were planets that represented reading milestones. When the students reached an objective, a rocket would leave to visit the planet. The last milestone, 100,000 minutes of playback, was the sun.
“These kids have far exceeded our goal,” said Leah Shavers, the teacher who led Reading Month. “It was nice to see everyone at the school participating. The children completely absorbed themselves in the books.
To celebrate their trip to the sun, the students received sunglasses to ensure their safety.
To celebrate their achievements in reading and their visit to the sun, all students received space traveler passports on Friday. The passport had room for five stamps. Each student received a stamp once they completed one of the five “missions” created for them to learn.
Each mission was named after a constellation and taught students a space-related activity. The first mission, Ursa Major, centered on a space-themed bingo game led by Principal Shawn Fink.
The second mission, Ursa Minor, had students involved in space-themed craft time. Students were able to meet alien friends and create alien headbands and their own constellations.
The third mission, Taurus the Bull, had students decorate their own rockets before detonating them. Students created a rocket out of paper, tape, and straws, and blew straws to propel their ships.
The fourth mission, Orion the Hunter, had children draw constellations by punching holes in pieces of paper. They then shone flashlights behind the paper revealing the creations.
Mission five, Gemini, was a series of space-related relay races designed to burn energy.
“We wanted today to be a party and for the kids to do something fun,” Shaver said. “Since it was space-themed, we wanted the kids to have fun traveling through space. The Friday activities were designed to teach kids about science, math, reading, while having fun.
To close the month, Friday at the end of the day, the winners of the class and individual reading competitions were announced.
In first place for the first year, Chaytum Shaver, who read for 2,760 minutes. Second place for the rating went to Savannah Brown, who read 2,140 minutes.
The second-year winner was Taylor Loney, who read for 1,640 minutes. In second place for rank was Cole Vincent with 1,360 minutes.
For the third year, the winner was Emily English, who read 2,100 minutes, followed by Jacob Schmader with 1,590 minutes.
Tessa Jones read the most of all fourth graders, she read for 1,865 minutes. Just 200 minutes behind her was Grace Fultz, who read 1,600 minutes.
The CM2 students really started to read. The fifth-year winner and runner-up were only 40 minutes apart. Mackenzie Yochum read the most of any student at the school with 8,320 minutes. Mallory Beers finished just ahead of her, who played 8,280 minutes.
Dvorkin can be contacted by email at [email protected]
Comments are closed.