Remember the March Reading Challenge that ran in Windham County for the last 25 years? Last year was the final year– No more reading contracts and chances to win prizes for students in Windham County. It was a wonderful program for all those years, but all things come to end. Even though the March Reading Challenge no longer exists, it seems a shame to not to carry on the tradition of a community joining together to rededicate themselves to reading. Enter We Give Books, a philanthropic initiative from Pearson Publishing that gives a book away to schools in need every time someone reads a book at the We Give Books website.
We Give Books is a perfect fit for Academy: the school is full of great readers who like helping others. What a great replacement for the March Reading Challenge. A chance to give books to people who need them AND the reward of reading a good book. It should come as no surprise that I feel reading is its own reward! And I am sure we will find lots of lovely, small ways to celebrate our accomplishments during our four weeks of reading.
The school will begin reading books online at school and at home on Monday, March 18 and read until April 12. Since this is the first time we have participated we are having fun as a school community figuring out ways to meet our school community challenge of four thousand books in four weeks. We plan a friendly competition to see which class reads the most books. There’s also the possibility of teams comprised of multiple grades joining forces to read for the four thousand book goal. Stay tuned! I will update frequently about the school’s experience with We Give Books. Your child will go home with the website address and login information for their class on Friday. If you get time over the weekend log on and have a look around, there’s a great selection of books. And please leave questions, ideas, and comments below.
Looking forward to the next four weeks!
Happy reading,
Mrs. Parks
The Frugal Chariot 