Andrews – Andrews Elementary School celebrated its annual literacy event on Oct. 16 by incorporating math as well with the Score Big With Math & Reading evening for students and parents.
A total of 60 families attended with this year’s enrollment totaling 348, which is the highest in four years, according to Principal Kim Davis. She said the evening, which was held to help explain third-grade “Read to Achieve” expectations to families, was coordinated by assistant principal Diane Kinne, library assistant Sam Cross and this year’s newest addition to the staff, physical education coach Travis Salinas.
“We’re excited to have Travis with us this year and the group came up with the theme of ‘Score Big’ and all the games for each grade to incorporate both the mental and physical aspects of learning,” Davis said.
Those mental feats included each grade having a different task or game such as the kindergarten classes, which had a sports bingo game in the library, along with the second-graders’ display decorated pumpkins to coordinate with their favorite books.
First-grade classes had mystery sensory bags which included several objects such as socks and pencils along with Halloween-themed items, such as plastic spiders and fake teeth for the tactile guessing game with Hailey Rogers. Second-graders had the “Bad Speller” game, which challenged students with words color-coded to each grade with Ms. Anderson and Patterson, and student teacher Brooke Phillips.
Fourth-graders had Ms. Leips administering a ring toss to test math skills. Fifth-graders were asked to guess nonsense math words with Charlene Rickett and Melinda Woods.
Gymnasium activities or sports games included a round-robin of sorts outdoors on the playground with the Wildcat Blitz obstacle course. Indoors there was also the Cup Race Duel and “Fluffball Frenzy,” which kept both parents and students busy at each station.
Each student had a “scorecard” stamped with each completed activity. Different prizes were awarded, including as many free books as were wanted from the reading station in the cafeteria.
Too, both Andrews Public Library branch manager Jacqueline Hulse and Kelly Bryant were in attendance handing out coloring pages and information about getting a library card to emphasize the importance of reading.
Students and staff were encouraged to wear their favorite sports team’s jerseys and included among the crowd were many a red and black Wildcat shirt proudly displayed. Several teachers sporting collegiate jerseys roamed the halls with much of the SEC represented such as the longstanding Georgia and Tennessee rivalry as well as national teams such as the Atlanta Braves.
Several polite jeers and jabs were also heard along the hallways with echoes of, “Your shirt’s ugly,” and “No, yours is.”
Davis said these events are to encourage parental involvement in each student’s educational journey as well as show improvement during the year and this year we wanted to emphasize that “what’s good for the body is good for the mind and vice versa.”
Details: Visit aes.cherokee.k12.nc.us.