Thursday, October 4, 2012

MSBA Kick-Off: Rah! Rah! Read!

Today was one of those days that renews my teaching energy!  Our school's Literacy Team hosted our annual Maine Student Book Award Kick-Off Assembly for staff and students. It is seriously one of my MOST favorite days of the school year! What could be more fun than a 45 minute pep rally type assembly whose sole purpose to celebrate READING?  This is the official kick off of our participation in Maine's highly respected student choice reading program. Students and staff enjoyed entertaining book talks by fellow students, teachers, and even some surprise book characters. They saw student created book trailers! With the help of some eager students, our school's librarian, Patty Remillard, McArthur Public Library's Children's Librarian, Deanna Gouzie and I led the entire school in the MSBA Cheer! Everyone received an MSBA bookmark and best of all...students were excited about BOOKS and READING! Love!  It was a fun time for sure...take a look!
 
McArthur Public Library's Children's Librarian Deanna Gouzie explains how the Maine Student Book Award program works!


 
Jack from Jennifer Jacobson's Small as an Elephant woke up to find a captive audience ready to hear his story!

 
Liesl (from Liesl & Po by Lauren Oliver) was the only one who could actually see Po during her book talk...but trust me...students were searching high and low to find where the mysterious voice was coming from!
 

 
Marie Antoinette shares true, really gross facts from How They Croaked: The Awful Ends of the Awfully Famous by Georgia Bragg.

 
Jeremy and Slade from Jeremy Bender vs. the Cupcake Cadets by Eric Luper  brought down the house with their guest appearance!
 
 
I think you'll agree that I am very fortunate to work with some highly dedicated educators who willing go beyond the call of duty to promote reading as a fun and enjoyable experience! A huge thank you to Shawn Anton, Marianne Collins, Matt Desenberg, Deanna Gouzie, Cheryl Legendre, Sharon McGovern, Patty Remillard, and Meghan Schrader for always jumping onto my idea bandwagons and giving 110%.  I also have to thank our school's principal, Debra Kenney for allowing the Literacy Team the time to put on these types of literacy events for our school!
 
 
The excitement was palpable!
The Maine Student Book Award program allows students to read, evaluate, and then vote on their favorite book on the MSBA list. This list is created by Maine librarians and teachers and contains published children’s and YA books from the previous year. Students must read at least 3 books from the list in order to be eligible to vote in March 2013.The Maine Student Book Award is a joint project of Maine Library Association, Maine Association of School Librarians and the Maine Reading Association.