Andrews – Andrews Elementary School celebrated a literacy event on Nov. 7 with a specially themed Lights! Camera! Read! evening for students and parents.
The event came on the heels of the school having celebrated the National Family Partnership’s Red Ribbon Week, with the theme of “Life is a Movie – Film Drug-Free,” which also allowed students to engage in various theme days, including favorite sports team and school color days. The national event is to draw focus on students engaging in activities that support their communities and families by actively pursuing a commitment to drug free living beyond their educational careers.
For the Lights! Camera! Read! evening, students were urged to dress as their favorite characters from literature who have also appeared in film versions of the works.
Plenty of characters – from Disney movies such as Elsa from Frozen to the popular Harry Potter series along with Pippi Longstocking – made the red carpet run alongside pirates and princesses just a week out from Halloween’s festive costumery.
Principal Kim Davis said the event was held to celebrate reading across the various grades and curricula, a way to involve parents more in their students’ everyday reading adventures and school assignments. She was also dressed as Katherine Applegate, author of One and Only Ivan, her stuffed silverback gorilla on her hip.
As an added bonus, apart from the candy bar creation station inside the gymnasium, Andrews Public Library branch manager Jacqueline Hulse was alongside the Nantahala Regional Library’s Youth Services Librarian Bridget Wilson to assign library cards to any student or parent who did not already have one.
According to newly assigned assistant principal Diane Kinne, who was also dressed as Fern from Charlotte’s Web with a stuffed “Some Pig” Wilbur in tow, the event provided a chance for “the students to feel like celebrities as they came in on a red carpet with their families.”
Too, Kinne added that since her first day of this school year in her position she’d embraced and deeply felt the care and concern of all the staff, students and families to help participate in and promote the school’s events.
The halls were decorated with faux paparazzi cutouts and stars galore lined the walkway on the “Walk of Fame” to classrooms which provided opportunities for “autograph sessions” along with a photo booth and plenty of popcorn to satisfy everyone’s salty cravings.
Kindergarten students presented a short skit
rendering the 1986 book
The Little Old Lady Who Wasn’t Afraid of Anything by Linda Williams, which portrayed a seasonal treat of a woman walking alone through a forest on an autumn night who encounters various articles of clothing including gloves, hats, pants and ominous pumpkin heads which all make varying degrees of onomatopoeic noises – including clomps and claps – as she makes her way home after her walk in the woods.
Fourth-graders also gave a performance in the gymnasium of Mary Corcoran’s book The Circulatory Story.
Both Davis and Kinne said they’re looking forward to other events during the school year which promote the values of education the school provides for the community.
Details: Visit aes.cherokee.k12.nc.us.