GOOD HOPE, Ala. – Students and faculties of schools nationwide observed “Read Across America” Day March 2. Good Hope Middle School (GHMS) Library Media Specialist Stephanie Hood shared with The Tribune about her school’s observance, which included activities and festivities throughout the week.
Said Hood, “Our school was decorated with amazing bulletin boards and displays honoring Dr. Seuss and his books. We had dress-up days to celebrate different Dr. Seuss books…my favorite being Pajama Day, which goes along with the Dr. Seuss book ‘The Sleep Book.’ We had guest readers each day. They read a book over the intercom to the entire school.”
Guest readers included:
- Hanna Hancock, reigning Good Hope Fair Queen
- Kerry Neighbors, Good Hope’s Cullman County School Board representative
- Lt. Doug Duke, GHMS School Resource Officer
- Beverly Jenkins and Wesley Harden, Good Hope Elementary Administrators
- Paul Derrick, seventh-grade history teacher (Hood called him “a favorite among the students”)
Aside from the actual reading and dress-up days, other activities included:
- Seventh-grade English teacher Cindy Stephens brought her classes to the library to make Oobleck, in celebration of the Dr. Seuss book “Bartholomew and the Oobleck.”
- Students repeated a favorite activity from early in the school year, making Rubik’s Cube mosaics in the library.
- On Friday morning, Principal Lesley Hembree, Brandy Lowe and Hood made cupcakes in the Good Hope lunchroom to share with students. Hood noted, “Our lunchroom ladies are very patient with us during our messy baking!”
“I absolutely love Read Across America and tend to go a little overboard with it,” Hood said. “But, when you have middle school students excited about checking out a Dr. Seuss book, it’s totally worth all the hard work! In my opinion, it was the best week ever.”
About Read Across America
The National Education Association sponsors Read Across America Day each year on the school day closest to March 2, the birthday of famed children’s author Theodore Seuss Geisel, known around the world as “Dr. Seuss,” as well as year-round reading programs for schools and families “to help you motivate kids to read, bring the joys of reading to students of all ages, and make all children feel valued and welcome.”
For more on Read Across America, visit www.readacrossamerica.org.
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