Love for Literacy Event
Berkeley Heights Public Schools
Earlier in February, the inaugural ‘Love for Literacy Night’ was held at Mountain Park School. With over 50 families in attendance, and teachers, staff and GLHS student volunteers from National Honor Society were on hand leading activities, the event was a successful celebration of student literacy in Berkeley Heights.
Developed from an idea initiated by Mountain Park PTO Co-Presidents Carly Davis and Tamara Greben to bring a free family-fun event to the school, the concept quickly came to life under the leadership of Mountain Park Reading Specialist Mrs. Maria Graziano. Mrs. Graziano, a 24-year veteran of BHPS, loved the concept of creating an evening dedicated to celebrating literacy, books and writing, and quickly ran with it to create ‘Love for Literacy Night’. Mrs. Graziano said “I was so excited to be able to work with the PTO and utilize my love of books to bring the Mountain Park community together.”
The event centered around a literary passport that helped guide attendees through the different ‘stops’ on their trip. At each station the passport was stamped to show that the stop had been completed. Six literacy stations, run by teacher volunteers, were set up with an activity related to literacy. There was also a table to create positive messages that were then placed on a 3D tree in the hallway allowing students to spread kindness to all who visit Mountain Park School.
The six literary stations included:
- Book Bingo with bingo boards containing titles of books related to love in anticipation of the upcoming Valentine’s Day holiday.
- Poetry Cafe where attendees created works of poetry, which were later posted on a bulletin board.
- Craft Room Bookmark for attendees to create beautiful and fun bookmarks.
- Guest Author Book Reading featuring local authors Mr. Chaz Hazlet and his daughter Natalia who read their book, ‘Charlie’s First Haircut’ and talked about the process of writing a book.
- Maker Space where visitors were given a few minutes to work together and either create a story or think about a story that occurred in their lives. There were instruments at the front of the room and they were asked to play one of those instruments to represent certain parts of the story (Main idea or a specific theme) For example, shaking the tambourine when the character was nervous and playing a cymbal when they were happy.
- Message in a Book with librarian Mrs. Kelly Radano where students wrote messages/reviews on books.
In addition to the six stops on the literacy tour, a gently used book fair where almost 2000 books were available for sale thanks to the generosity of local families, helped raise money for the PTO. All monies raised throughout the night will be used towards the continuation of love of literacy at Mountain Park School. The books that were not sold have been repurposed for a book-mobile cart that is available to students to borrow from during recess.
Mr. Jon Morriseau, the Principal of Mountain Park School stated, “Literacy night at Mountain Park was a perfect example of inspiration, motivation, and execution coming together for a great community event. It was gratifying to see PTO members, teachers, paraprofessionals, custodians, and GLHS National Honor Society students come together selflessly for the enrichment of our students.”
