Go Places with Books

The reading program last year was sort of a haphazard affair and I had virtually no involvement in it other that assisting the students in finding books to read. This year everyone wanted something different and I was put in charge. After lots of thought and brainstorming we now have a really great, school-wide program. It is called Go Places with Books and we have a bulletin board outside the media center that is the visual center with a huge world and information about the program. Essentially the students (according to the standard) are being asked to read 25 books and when a book is complete they fill out a “wall summary” listing the title, author, number of pages, and a few sentences about their thoughts on the book. Each page counts for one mile and each team has a transportation vehicle we tape to the summary (sailboat, motorcycle, bike, limo and a convertible for the teachers) and we have them taped to the wall running up and down the halls from the main board. The math department is in charge of keeping track of the miles and how many each team is racking up and the social studies department keeps up informed about where we are and on which trip around the world. We do drawings weekly with student names of who had turned in a summary and had our first party (of four, this one for reading five books) for the students with our principle “flipping over books”. The students who met the first goal came to the media center for pizza and got to see our principle actually do a standing flip and round off. They all had a great time and there will be even more people who meet the next goal in January. (One of our social studies teacher, a DJ, “rocking” over books maybe?)