From November 9th to November 13 2020, AIS Early Childhood and Elementary students had the unique opportunity to travel.  Whether they were exploring the halls of Hogwarts or visiting Piggie and Elephant, students had a chance to go anywhere they wanted.  Of course, this was because it was Literacy Week! A chance for everyone to pause, and spend some time getting lost in a genre, a series, an author, a setting, or an adventure inside of a book.

Literacy Week offered a variety of opportunities to celebrate reading both at home and in our socially distanced classrooms.  Each day, students were given a theme to celebrate which encouraged everyone to explore new genres of stories.  Monday focused on favorites (characters, books, authors, series), Tuesday explored poetry, Wednesday involved books that make us laugh, Thursday focused on fairy tales and we rounded off our week on Friday with adventure books and a chance to dress up as your favorite book character.

Students were able to participate in activities such as mystery read-alouds, flip grid book recommendations, ‘Guess the Teacher’s favorite book’ games, themed class read alouds and creating bookmark crafts. A most memorable experience for Grades 2, 3 and 4 included a virtual visit with My Weird School Author, Dan Gutman!  The opportunity for students to explore reading and writing with a famous author they know and admire was no doubt an experience which they will treasure always.

In addition to our activities, students competed in both a grade wide illustration contest and a class door decorating contest too! The entries were overwhelming and clearly reflect the talented student body of AIS. Congratulations to Class 4C for their winning ‘Christmasaursus’ door as well as all the illustration contest winners: Lawrence (G1J), Sophia (G1J), Keegan (G1J), Isaac (G1), Amber (G1), Allison (G2), Irene (G2), Fletcher (G2), Jenny (G3), Flora (G3), Natural (G3), Srisha (G4), Sanaah (G4) and Hannah (G4).

The hard working AIS literacy team members including Ms. Rosa, Ms. Warriner, Ms. Capacho-Suarez, Ms. Forte, Mrs. Bae Lee and Mrs. Gibbs were so thrilled to bring the joy and magic of reading into AIS. It was such a pleasure to see the students have a unique chance during this very unique year to celebrate something as special as reading and to share their love of reading with others while making wonderful memories.