Comstock Park — Books are in full bloom at Stoney Creek Elementary as students and staff turned their halls into a whimsical reading forest for National Reading Month.
“We decided to do something the whole school could be involved in and came up with the idea of each grade decorating their hallway,” Principal Robin Picarazzi said.
For the first-time event, the theme was national forests. Bathrooms became “outhouses,” learning support rooms became “ranger stations,” and students served as park guides.
Picarazzi said the hallway decorating competition, which was judged by the district administration team, has brought the school together while highlighting the importance of reading.
In the first-grade hall, which won the competition, each student made a folded-paper tent featuring themselves reading inside, first-grader Ava Plumb said.
“It took us about four days to put everything up,” said classmate Emmanuel Casares as he walked the first-grade hall with Ava.
“Some of the characters are from a book,” Emmanuel added, pointing to a bear and pigeon from Mo Willems’ “Don’t Let the Pigeon Feed the Bear!”.
In the second-grade hall, decorated with a night camping theme, black material covered the lights and each classroom entrance was turned into a giant tent. Paper tents featuring students also lined the hallway.
In the kindergarten hall, students traced their hands to create campfires, made paper lanterns and colored animals to place in the kindergarten woods.
Kindergartner Jesse Gomez said the hallway decorating was fun as she and her brother, Jude, pointed out the bears that they made.
Jude said the decorating and special reading activities for the month, such as bringing your stuffed animal to school, guest readers, theme days and reading goals, definitely “make you want to read more.”
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