BETHEL PARK CELEBRATES READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY ethel Park
The IMS Readers pose for a fun photo in the Franklin lobby rotunda.
BETHEL PARK CELEBRATES READ ACROSS AMERICA DAY ethel Park
BETHEL PARK SCHOOL DISTRICT
Every year on March 2, Bethel Park elementary students celebrate Read Across America Day, a day which celebrates the birthday of beloved children’ s book author Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss.
Students came to school dressed as their favorite Dr. Seuss character, with the Cat in the Hat and Thing 1 and Thing 2 among the favorites.
They participated in a variety of fun activities, all designed to promote a love of reading.
A group of Independence Middle School Student Council Students, who call themselves the IMS Readers, got the ball rolling by visiting four of the elementary schools to rotate through the classrooms, reading their favorite story books, serving as reading role models and talking to the students about the importance of reading on a daily basis.
Washington students enjoyed the IMS Readers, but especially enjoyed coming to school dressed for the occasion. For example, all the female students in Mr. Dressler’ s room came to school dressed as one of the“ Things” from The Cat in the Hat.
William Penn students wore either red, white or blue to school on March 2 or dressed as a book character, while the staff wore matching t-shirts commemorating Dr. Seuss and Read Across America Day.
The Bethel Park High School Drama Club visited to perform their updated“ Feed the Need to Read” original assembly, which brought to life some of the younger students’ favorite book characters to life in skit and song.
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Fourth graders in Mr. Dressler’ s room all dressed as one of the“ Things” from The Cat in the Hat on Read Across America Day.
( Left to right): Ella Korb and Grant Gealey work together to create as tall of a Cat in the Hat hat as they can, using red plastic cups and note cards.
At the end of the day, the teachers participated in a“ Teacher Swap” where they visited classrooms other than their own to read their favorite stories to the students.
First graders in Mrs. Clancy’ s room at Franklin enjoyed a week of Dr. Seuss STEAM-themed activities that tied in with several of his books.
After the students read Bartholomew and the Oobleck, they made their own oobleck and discussed the phases of matter to discover how this non- Newtonian fluid quickly changes from a liquid to a solid under pressure. After reading Green Eggs and Ham, the students were given a green“ egg” made of a mystery ingredient, in this case, baking soda, and the students used pipettes to add vinegar to the egg to observe a chemical reaction that created bubbles from carbon dioxide. Then the students discussed how different ingredients can be mixed to cause different reactions.
A highlight of the week was the building of Cat in the Hat top hats using red plastic cups and white note cards after reading The Cat in the Hat. The students worked in pairs and used their engineering skills to build their hats in a variety of ways.
To incorporate math, the students measured their hats to determine which structures were the strongest and which were the weakest.
In addition to the STEAM activities, the students incorporated Dr. Seuss books throughout the week for a variety of language
arts activities such as reading, rhyming and phonics practice.
Read on, Bethel Park!