AAPS Library Services Department
March/April 2024 Vol. 20
March is the month to celebrate reading! Every school library has many activities planned to engage students in reading and books! Below are just a few examples!
Allen Elementary School
Allen Elementary kicked off our March is Reading Month program on Friday, March 1, with a song and dance video of all classes dancing to our 2nd and 3rd grade singing a parody of an old Bruno Mars song; our version is "Hey, Eagles . . . I think I want to read with you!" Throughout the month, all grades will enjoy some DEAR time, a Read at Home Challenge to earn a free book, a Scholastic Book Fair, spirit days, and some fun guessing of our weekly mystery shredded book. Classrooms are reading Mr. Wolf's Class: Snow Day, by Aron Nels Steinke. Students will have a Zoom visit with the author on the last day of school before break! Students will also have the opportunity to participate in the annual tradition of a school-wide Vocabulary Parade celebrating our love of words!
Bach Elementary School
At Bach Elementary, we are doing a Masked Reader Challenge, where students watch a read aloud and then vote to guess which staff member they think is the masked reader. There are 10 Masked Readers for the month and classes receive tickets for correct guesses that go in a raffle to win books for their classrooms. At the end of the month, we will have an assembly that reveals who each Masked Reader is!
Burns Park Elementary
Burns Park Elementary has officially kicked off our Reading Month! Our theme this year is “Wild About Reading”. Students and staff were so excited to welcome local storyteller extraordinaire, Laura Pershin Raynor to our assemblies on Friday, March 1.
Throughout the month, students will enjoy picture books that will travel the building and rotate through the classes. We’re calling this the “You’ve Been Book’d” program. All of these books support our “Wild About Reading” theme.
Students will show their love for the written word, during our annual Read-a-thon on Friday, March 22nd. As is our tradition, students read or are read to for the entire afternoon. Volunteers will read to our youngest students that afternoon from around 12:30 – 2. Continuing another tradition, it is pajama day! This event is always a highlight of the month.
Eberwhite Elementary School
AAPS Elementary MIRM Calendar
We encourage all families to use the interactive AAPS March is Reading Month Activity Calendar to engage in reading this month in a fun and interactive way. This year’s calendar was created by our AAPS elementary school librarians!
Camp Read S'more
We are very excited to host our family literacy night on Thursday, 3/21, at 6:00-7:30p.m.! This night of literacy will include celebrity read aloud sessions, Eberwhite Woods story walks, photo booth with props, local vendors, AADL visit, local authors, book swap, s'mores and more! Look for more information to follow as this special night approaches.
Cozy Up and Read
Each Friday in March will be a pajama day in honor of reading month! On Thursday, 3/21, in recognition of World Down Syndrome Day, we'll Rock Our Socks at EBW!
King Elementary School
To celebrate March Reading Month, King Elementary School will explore interesting vocabulary throughout the month.
Once students have learned to decode text, vocabulary is the most important single factor affecting reading comprehension. Students hear thousands of new words every year and they will have a better chance of knowing those words if adults around them consistently use precise and unusual vocabulary and complex sentences and expect students to emulate them. So, this is exactly what we'll do throughout the month of March!
All classes will read the book, The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds. Throughout the month, our entire school will collect interesting words, like the main character, Jerome does in the book. We will be on the lookout for interesting words when we're reading, speaking, and listening! You can continue the learning at home by keeping your own "collection" of interesting words you discover in books as you read. :)
Mitchell Elementary School
Mitchell school will be celebrating March is Reading Month with the theme Read Books, Spark Change. Students will be reading books throughout the month that celebrate taking action and sparking change in their world.
As a school, we are promoting a school-wide action event where non-perishable food items and gently used books will be collected for our local community. Students are encouraged, as they are able, to bring a non-perishable food item to school ( such as a can of soup) which will then be donated to a local food bank. Furthermore, students can donate a gently used book for a school wide book give away in April.
Students can celebrate reading all month long at home with a district wide library MIRM calendar. Students may click on the dates within the calendar and find enjoyable reading related activities.
Reading is an essential part of our classroom & school culture. At Mitchell, we will continue to grow and use research-supported practices to support reading motivation and engagement.
A2 STEAM
STEAM students celebrate reading month!
Secret Books (Scavenger Hunt) Mission: for each class to find all SIX secret books in their grade band hidden throughout the school. Once they’ve read the book, they get to hide it for someone else to find. The theme this year is books that won the 2024 Youth Media (American Library Association) awards.
"Caught" Reading: if an adult in the building “catches” a student reading at an unusual time (lunch, recess, before or after school) or in an unusual way (upside down? While balancing on one foot?) they receive a raffle ticket (drawing is for an Amazon gift card or UV Pen) and they get to pick a sticker or premium bookmark.
Middle School Genre Bingo: Middle school students read across genres. For each Bingo, they receive a raffle ticket (drawing is for an Amazon gift card or UV Pen) and they get to pick a sticker or premium bookmark.
Popular Books at STEAM March Madness Bracket: The March madness bracket has the most popular books at STEAM. Those who correctly guess the winners are entered into a drawing for a gift card.
Door Decorating Competition: We are also having a Heroes and Heroines (in books) classroom door decorating competition.
Thurston Elementary Schools
Clague Middle School
At Clague Middle School, in addition to a March Madness Tournament of Books to vote for their favorite book about friendship, students can participate in the Sora Achievement Badge Reading Contest. Student earn badges for checking out books, reading time, completing books, reading different genres and more. Click here for more information!
Scarlett Middle School
At Scarlett, students will be voting for their favorite graphic novel in the annual March Book Madness bracket. Also, in conjunction with the librarian at Wines Elementary School, Scarlett will be hosting author, Kelly J. Baptist on Thursday, March 14.
Slauson Middle School
Students at Slausson can participate in a reading activity a day as suggested in the reading month calendar by checking out a cookbook and making a reciepe, writing a book review, and attending an event at the Ann Arbor District Library, just to name a few.
Beginning in March and running through the end of the year, students can earn stamps for the "Read Around the Globe" passport program by reading books that take place in each of the seven continents.
Huron High School
The Huron Library has a strong pool of contenders in this year's Library March Madness (w/books) competition. Some of our English class reads are automatic bids, but we never know which low seed will be this year's Cinderella story! The tournament will run through Friday, April 12. There will be fabulous prizes!
Students and staff can play in two ways:
- Fill out a bracket and turn it into the library.
- Come to the library to vote for your favorite books in each round.
All games happen during 8th hour on the following days:
Friday, March 15: Sweet Sixteen
Friday, March 22: Elite Eight
Friday, April 5: Final Four
Friday, April 12: Championship
All staff are also encouraged to post a sign with what they are currently reading.
And, as always, we have plenty of print books in the library and even more ebooks in Sora to check out. Check out our display of basketball books in honor of Huron's Regional-winning Boys Basketball team. Go Rats!!
Pioneer High School
Pioneer High School celebrates “March is Reading Month” by sponsoring two raffle contests to encourage students to read and check out books from the library media center. Students who checkout books are entered into a raffle in which the winners can win cash prizes. In addition, we are creating a community of readers where posters on classrooms doors of classrooms throughout the building where teachers and staff place the titles of books and authors they are currently reading.
AAPS collaborates with the University of Michigan on Digital Wellness Symposium
Ann Arbor Public Middle schools are partnering with the University of Michigan on a peer-to-peer digital wellness project. University of Michigan students from the School of Education, School of Social Work and School of Information are working collaboratively to teach students how to respectfully and responsibly engage with digital media. AAPS sixth graders from Clague, Scarlett, and Tappan attended a two day symposium at the School of Information led by UM students and learned what digital wellness is and reflected on their own online habits. Over the next few weeks, teams of UM students will attend students’ advisory sessions once a week to develop an outreach project to promote digital wellness in the sixth graders’ schools.