After being canceled last year due to COVID, the Watonga Elementary School was able to host its first-ever Scholastic Book Fair.
Students at Watonga Elementary have loved the book fair this year according to elementary principal Lori Graham.
Assistant librarian Shayla Greer has been helping out in setting up and getting the students the books they want to buy.
“I'm very busy. I'm really surprised at how much we’ve sold,” Greer said.
Parents such as Pam Richey also enjoyed the book fair this year. Her daughter Amani Richey said she was excited to read to her stuffed animal every night.
“We wanted to come and get some books and support the school,” Pam Richey said. “My daughter loves to read."
This year, Scholastic took extra precautions to keep kids safe and provided alternate methods for purchasing their items.
Students were able to purchase their books online and could arrive at the book fair to pick them up or have their orders shipped to their homes.
An added feature of this year’s book fair that the elementary decided to implement this year was their “Adopt a Pet” program.
“The kids love it. If you get a pet, you have to read to it for 20 minutes a day,” Graham said. “The ones that have them, they're reading with them.”
The move was started to encourage children to read more as Graham stated that while children's reading abilities continue to do great, the amount of time they spend reading has gone down.
“They're excited about [the book fair], because what I'm figuring out here in Watonga is that kids don't have a lot of books at home,” Graham said. “There are more things for kids to do other than read and that hurts.”
However, Graham continues to try and get her students to read more. She has asked her teachers to begin the Pizza Hut BOOK IT! program as well as rewarding the students who accumulate AR points from the books they read.
Last year because of the pandemic, Graham also started a program where she would live-stream herself reading a book online where students could watch from home.
This year’s “Adopt a Pet” program seems like it could have a positive impact on upping the students reading time.
“They've been really excited and they really wanted the stuffies,” Greer said. “They’re like, how do we get that?”
On the last day of the book fair, Graham gathered up Watonga Elementary’s outstanding students of the semester and gave each $8 worth of Scholastic funding that they could spend at the book fair.
“I think it’s always fun to reward good and smart students,” Graham said.