March is Reading Month and Cornerstone celebrates all month long! From special guests to reading events with a fun theme, Cornerstone students are encouraged to read, read, read!
Local Author Visits Adams-Young Academy
Students at Adams-Young Academy were overjoyed to welcome Mrs. Rachel Woods to campus to help celebrate Reading Month. Woods, a local author and attorney, read her books, We Are All Bears and A Bald, Beautiful Bear (about a bear with cancer), and answered questions. She spoke about her journey to becoming an author, inspiring many students to write their own stories one day. We are grateful to Mrs. Woods for celebrating Reading Month with our students.
Book Vending Machine Debuts At Madison-Carver Academy
A very special vending machine was unveiled at Madison-Carver Academy during Reading Month. In partnership with Scholastic Publishing, Cornerstone was able to load the machine with books at all reading levels. Students are able to earn special tokens by displaying exceptional behavior, and those tokens may be used in the machine. Several books have been earned in the first two weeks. Cornerstone hopes to be able to install similar book vending machines at all schools in the near future.
A Visit From Dr. Seuss
Retired educator, Ms. Ellis, returned to the building where her teaching career began to educate and entertain the students at Adams-Young Academy. She taught in the building when it was the John King School, part of DPSC. Ms. Ellis arrived in character as The Cat in the Hat and shared a few Dr. Seuss classics with a delighted group of early readers. The “Cat’s” visit will long be remembered by the Adams-Young students.
Book Donation Enhances High School Libraries
“As both an English and Reading teacher, I am always looking for opportunities and companies who support teachers and want to improve childhood literacy,” says Vivian Garcia from Lincoln-King High School (LKHS). Ms. Garcia applied to a program called Books For Kids, via District Kiwanis Clubs that supply free books to teachers and groups working to improve childhood literacy rates. She received a grant for 300 books, which she and fellow teacher Renate Matthews got to choose from the Books for Kids facility. They packed up and delivered the books to LKHS in time for March Reading Month.
Ms. Garcia continues, “We were able to get a box of books into each English teacher’s classroom here at LKHS. We all believe that independent reading should be part of our students’ daily routine. The students were very excited, too, choosing books to read from the new classroom libraries. My next goal is to get a bookshelf and maybe some beanbag chairs to provide a comfortable reading space for my students. There’s no stopping me! I am motivated to provide books that our students will love.”
Volunteers Bring Stem Book To Jefferson-Douglass Academy
Second grade students at Jefferson-Douglass Academy (JDA) welcomed three volunteers from Automotive Women’s Alliance Foundation (AWAF) to share the book, Sara’s Spark For Stem. The book, authored by past AWAF scholarship recipient, Anna Sun from Canton, Michigan, centers on Sara’s love of science and how her parents learned to encourage her. The volunteers, Ashwini Balasubramanian, Antonella Grimaldi and Susan Rokosz, not only shared the book, but their professional journeys as well. The students were enthusiastic and asked many questions about science and engineering.
Every student received a copy of Sara’s Spark For Stem to add to their home libraries, and the teachers received copies for their classroom libraries. We are grateful to the AWAF volunteers for their time and generosity, and hope to welcome them back one day soon.
Pop In To Reading At Adams-Young Academy
Adams-Young Academy students closed out March Reading Month with a fun learning activity that encourages art, reading and every student’s favorite activity – snacking! Every class visited the cafeteria, which was set up especially for students to “Pop Into A Good Book.” Younger students colored bookmarks and older students created fun origami bookmarks. Once bookmarks were complete, students took their bookmarks and their books to another spot in the cafeteria where they received a popcorn snack and got to dive into the books they chose for this activity. “I am having fun and my bookmark is a good tool,” said Kindergarten student Joseph.