Schools in Bloomfield celebrate the annual Read Across America

BLOOMFIELD, NJ — Read Across America, a celebration of reading, was recognized by Bloomfield elementary schools last week with a schedule of activities promoting childhood literacy. The weeklong festivity commemorates the March 2 birthday of children’s story author Theodor Seuss Geisel, a.k.a. Dr. Seuss.

First responders, secondary school students and local celebrities visited the elementary schools as readers. At Watsessing Elementary, media specialist Kelley Krick had her students draw, too. She told them to start with a doodle. Geisel, an accomplished visual artist who created the Oscar-winning cartoon character Gerald McBoing-Boing, often began his drawings with a doodle, she said.

At Oak View Elementary, since this was an Olympics year, the school extended Read Across America week and held an Olympic reading challenge.
Principal Mary DiTrani said all her students were challenged to read 3,104 books in one month beginning Feb. 8.

“If our students meet this challenge by March 8th,” she said, “we will celebrate by having a spring Olympics field day before the end of this school year.”

DiTrani said each grade-level teacher assigned a number of books for each student to read.
“When we totaled all the books that needed to be read for the challenge we came up with 3,104,” she said.
At Franklin Elementary, each day last week had a theme based on a Dr. Seuss book and students dressed accordingly. Every morning began with schoolwide reading time.

“Each class spent the first 10 minutes reading silently or as a group,” said Franklin librarian, Emily Tomkins.
As most schools did, Demarest Elementary kicked-off the week with an assembly and speeches about the importance of reading. There was also a crazy hat day and pajama day, when students and teacher could wear their pj’s to work. Demarest also challenged its students to read more and more and more.

According to Principal Mary Todaro, from Feb. 1 to March 2, her students were to read 20,000,000 words. Classes that contribute the most read word to the tally will be rewarded with a pizza party.

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