This morning, Mrs. Hoover kicked off Literacy Day on the PA system with some slapstick “reading” jokes before she asked the school to participate in D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read). Students had 20 minutes to do this before meeting in the gym for the opening presentation with Canadian author, Sigmund Brouwer.
The goal of Literacy Day at Wesley is to get students excited about reading, writing and creating literary works. That excitement was loud and clear from Mr. Brouwer, who used video, music, stories and even dancing (Chicken Dance and Baby Shark) to keep the elementary students fully engaged. He explained that books are just paper, glue and ink. They don’t come alive unless there is a good story in it. A good story makes you feel a certain way, takes control of your thoughts, grabs your attention, and doesn’t let go until the problem or situation is resolved. Writing is a super power that gives you the ability to put your thoughts directly into the mind of another person. We can all do it! He shared that good writing usually starts out as bad writing. It takes time to refine it and edit, which only makes it better. He even showed the students some of the drafts of one of his books and all the edits that were made. His parting message was one of encouragement – we all get better with practice, be fearless about mistakes, be motivated to connect through stories, and writing is an amazing tool that can help you reach your goals!
After the opening presentation, students rotated through special activities. Mr. Brouwer and fellow Canadian author, Eric Walters, spoke to each of the four groups of students: JK/SK, Grade 1-3, Grade 4&5, and Grade 6-8 students. When the students were not with one of the authors, their homeroom teachers prepared special Literacy Day activities. The Grade 6-8s even had a chance to participate in a special workshop with Mr. Bailey on digital music making.
Later in the afternoon, students also had an opportunity to go to the gym to purchase books from both of the authors and have them personalized and signed!
At the end of the day, Mr. Walters gave the closing remarks. One of the first things he did was acknowledge the importance of teachers. He shared how his grade 5 teacher, Christena Gay believed that he could be a writer one day. He kept in touch with her and shared many of his successes with her. He also spoke about one of his many projects – Creation of Hope, an orphanage in Kenya. One of his award winning books, My Name is Blessing, features a boy from this orphanage. Like most of his presentations during the day, he profiled a selection of his books, sprinkling in facts from his research, his interests and things that caught his attention that became one of his stories. At the end of this last presentation, he returned to his opening about our main topic today – words. He put up three quotes on the screen. He said that they are not his words but many in the audience can guess who they came from. Each quote lined up with a passage from the New Testament – words from Christ. These are words that we should live by. To end off on a happy note, Eric Walters played Happy by Pharrell Williams and asked the teachers to dance first. The students then joined them. Before the students were dismissed, Mrs. Hoover made of short video of everyone saying thank you to Mrs. Talsma (who is on parental leave), the organizer of Literacy Day!
