To recognize and celebrate Family Literacy Week Whiteside invited our families to visit our school for a fun night of reading activities.

Our intentions for this event were:

• Contribute to and support a love of reading within our families.
• Share resources that the school offers to read at home.
• Foster conversations about reading among our students and their families.
• Have fun!

Upon arrival, each family was given a treasure map to find a variety of reading and literacy activities throughout the school. Our scavenger hunt took them to:

• Our library, with Ms. Kawas and Ms. Tsougrianis, for a hosted a tour of our French and English fiction and non-fiction books. Each family used our library system to check out a book to read at home. Families also used literacy materials to build and create their own stories. There was also a character compliment station for students to post their favourite traits about their favourite fictional characters.
• Mme Ledesma’s class for wordless story activities. They were invited to scan wordless stories to create their own fiction, infer events of the story, make predictions, and share their comprehension.
• The gym for noisy reading, button making with Mr. Whelan and Mr. Lenz, and puppet creating with Ms. Jaffer. Families cozied up on our mats to read together. Then they joined Ms. Jaffer to create paper bag puppets of their favourite characters. Mr. Lenz and Mr. Whelan helped students create buttons to show of our Wolfpack’s love of reading.

It was a great night filled with laughter, successful reading, and fun. Each child received a bag of “book worms” and a bookmark on their way home. We hope the evening facilitated more conversations at home about reading and provided some resources to help.

Thank you to all for a magical evening.