MCCLELLAN ELEMENTARY JUSTIN LIBERATORE, PRINCIPAL
McClellan Celebrates Read Across America Week
T
he McClellan PTA planned a wonderful week of events for Read Across America Week. To begin
the week, they sent home a “Read at Home Bingo” card. Students could complete five activities
from the card (like “read in the car”, “read lying down”, “read with a hat on”), then turn in the card
with their parents’ initials to receive a prize. We also had a door-decorating contest with the top
three winners earning Scholastic Book Fair bucks to spend on their classroom library. Many of Dr. Seuss’s
famous books were represented such as The Lorax, Cat in the Hat, Oh the Places You Will Go, One Fish Two Fish
Red Fish Blue Fish, just to name a few. Every day had a different theme as well. We wore green for Green Eggs
and Ham day, we had crazy hair and outfits for Wacky Wednesday, we wore hats for Cat in the Hat day, and
we all grew a mustache for The Lorax day.
We also had special visitors that we read to and who read to us. On Tuesday, local handlers brought in
their therapy dogs, and each class sat in the gym and read to them. We learned a lot about their therapy
dogs too, and they even let us pet them. On Thursday, we had students from TJHS visit and read the story
Ordinary Mary’s Extraordinary Deed, and helped our students complete “spreading kindness” activities
relating to the theme of the book. It is always so nice when the older students take time to come back and
make connections with our younger students. Some of the TJ readers were McClellan students over 7 years
ago and still remember when TJHS students visited them during Read Across America Week when they
were here in fifth grade.
To wrap up the week, our PTA partnered with the Pleasant Hills Library to host a Dr. Seuss Birthday Party
over the weekend. There were crafts, games, and read-aloud activities with some of our McClellan teachers.
F
Heart Healthy Challenge
or as long as I’ve been at McClellan, one of our biggest outreach
programs has always been the Jump Rope 4 Heart and Hoops
4 Heart program. All money raised benefits the American Heart
Association. This year, as a K-2 building now, Ms. Gillette decided
to change up the format. Instead of jump roping in the gym for a whole
class period, she created a Heart Healthy Challenge obstacle course.
While half of the class completed the obstacle course, the other half
would complete a jump rope challenge to get over 150 jumps before
they could move onto the course. Once on the course, the students
had to jog, skip, slide, run, jump, hop, crawl, and even limbo their way
through the obstacles. This was a fun way to get the heart pumping while
learning ways to keep their hearts healthy. Not only did our students
learn a lot, but they raised a lot of money too. Ms. Gillette’s goal was to
raise $5,000 and we did that with ease. One classroom (Ms. Hense - 1st
grade) raised over $1,000 on their own! Thank you to everyone that
donated to this great event.
If you think a K-2 obstacle course is easy, scan the QR code to see a
video from Mr. Liberatore’s point of view as he worked his way through
with a GoPro camera on his head!
46 WEST JEFFERSON HILLS