Pictured performing are: Barbara Mundy, Eric Saiet, Jon Mindell, Tom Berger, Margaret Flanagan
This year BookPALS went into two schools to put on an end of year performance and award ceremony to congratulate the children for reading thirty or more books during the school year. Students in 4th and 5th grade that have read 30 books or more are given a T-shirt from NY BookPALS to acknowledge the reading that they have done.
Pictured performing are: Barbara Mundy, Eric Saiet, Jon Mindell, Tom Berger, Margaret Flanagan
The schools involved in the program are given an assembly for all of the 4th and 5th graders in the school. There is generally an ensemble of four to five volunteer actors that take part in the skits as well as one musician/actor. The auditorium is filled with students wearing their T-shirts by the end of the assembly!
The goal of this program is to motivate the children to read. Every year the children look forward to this special time, where their hard work pays off and they are recognized. Our top reader this year read over 200 books during the school year!
Our Reading Club assembly included two short skits intermixed with two songs. The ensemble of volunteer performers sang “Read This, the BookPALS song”. This was a special song written by Nancy Siriani just for NY BookPALS. Eric Saiet wrote two comedic skits and created a literacy themed rap to the tune of “Let’s get it Started”. Both performances got the children excited and energized for the final part of the show in which students were given T-shirts and books for reaching their reading goals. The students were thrilled to receive a “Star reader” T-shirt when they read 30 or more books. If they read more than 35 books, they also had their picture taken for a “Hall of Fame” poster that is hung in the library of the schools for all to see. Lastly, the top reader of every class received a hard cover book of their choice donated by Harcourt Children’s Publishing.
This year we were thrilled to welcome Tom Berger as our new Musical Director for the Reading Club Assemblies.
Our amazing ensemble of volunteer actors rehearsed several times to prepare the Reading Assemblies. Pictured are Barbara Mundy, Jon Mindell, and Eric Saiet.
Pictured performing are: Barbara Mundy, Eric Saiet, Jon Mindell, Tom Berger, Margaret Flanagan
Our ensemble of performers is pictured rehearsing. We thank the NY SAG office for allowing us to rehearse there!
Barbara Mundy and the ensemble are pictured rehearsing.
Margaret Flanagan and Eric Saiet are pictured preparing the Rap for the peformances.
The "Hall of Fame" poster was created by Maria Cabezas and was hung at PS 52 in the library of the school for all to see! Maria Cabezas, the NY Coordinator for BookPALS produced both assemblies.
BookPALS
http://www.bookpals.net/content/article.php?story=20080629134110144