From November 15th to November 19th, 2021, AIS Early Childhood and Elementary School students developed their love for literacy. Not only were there daily events, but homeroom classes had a variety of activities from a Literacy Week Choice Board from which to choose as well.

On Monday, ES teachers dressed up as book characters. 

On Tuesday, children’s illustrator and author of Narwhal: Unicorn of the Sea and Rot: The Cutest in the World Ben Clanton virtually illustrated with Grade 1-4 students exploring the creation of hybrid characters. Following Mr. Clanton, New York Times best-selling author/illustrator of The Dot, Peter H. Reynolds, zoomed in on Wednesday to share the power of storytelling to develop our AIS key mindset of confidence. Not only did Mr. Reynolds offer a read aloud, but Middle School students joined classes from early childhood to G4 to read aloud to the students in a beautiful cross-divisional collaboration. 

On Thursday, the Early Childhood team took a school favorite book, Michael Rosen’s “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” and transformed the area around the EC castle to all the locations of the bear hunt ending in EC2 TA Mr. Phong Nguyen hiding in a tent-converted cave pretending to be the bear.

While Monday was reserved for teachers to dress in costume, on Friday, our ES students wore character costumes bringing their favorite characters to life. In addition to the daily activities, students were able to participate in choice board activities such as mystery read-alouds, blackout poetry, story walks, Bingo for books, and a communal poetry activity where students wrote poems on a leaf and added it to an ES school poetry tree. Besides 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 4M for their winning door based off of the book Stuck by Oliver Jeffers. 

Thank you to the hard working AIS Literacy Team members including Ms. Amber Stice (EC2), Ms. Mary-Jean du Plessis (Gr1Jr), Ms. Miki Akaishi (G1), Ms. Heather Gibbs (G2), Ms. Natalia Capacho-Suarez (G4), Ms. Katy Smith (G4), and Ms. Rosa Park (Library).

While ES was buzzing with a love for literature, Middle School also celebrated Literacy Week with their own set of activities. 

On Monday, MS kicked off the week with “Hats Off to Reading!” where students and staff wore hats throughout the day. There were also Wanted Posters in the courtyard and in Humanities classes, students created poetry from pictures.

While ES had a visit from Ben Clanton and Peter H. Reynolds, in MS, New York Times best-selling author Kelly Yang visited virtually and shared how her experiences living in Hong Kong and immigrating to the United States influenced many of the characters of her young adult novels. Students also created book spines and played scattergories in Humanities classes. 

“I am Comfortable Reading!” was the theme for Wednesday where students and staff wore their house shirts so they could read comfortably during “D.E.A.R.” or Drop Everything And Read in class.

Thursday’s theme was “Sock it to Me with a Good Book!” so students and staff wore fun socks. In advisory, students played a Kahoot! to find out what books their teachers were reading while they had a Literacy Trivia House Competition in Humanities. On the last day of Literacy Week, students and staff could be found wearing bright colors as the theme was “Get Lit’erature!” In conjunction with ES and HS, students that joined this Charitable Free Dress Day donated HKD$20 for a grand total of HKD$11,502 which was donated to the Nepal Moonlight School. 

Mr. Anthony Goga (G5/6 Humanities), Mr. Rafi Khader (G5/6 Humanities), and Ms. Erin Durrant (G7 Humanities) formed the MS Literacy Week Team who thoroughly enjoyed engaging the MS scholars in different literacy activities that they don’t always get to enjoy each day. This was an opportunity to celebrate the use of language in all its different forms. They took great joy in reading and writing at AIS! It is truly the heart of their day.