Charlotte Weaves Her Web

At Sandy Hook School

By Tanjua Damon

Charlotte’s Web fever has caught on at Sandy Hook School. Students, teachers, administrators, custodians, office staff, and parents have not been able to put the book down since the school began reading it in early March.

Each day chapters of the book are read during school; activities and lessons are centered around reading and writing about the lessons the book offers. First grade teacher Ms Monahan and third grade teacher Ms Hammond joined together this week to teach their students about character traits.

Individually both classes took the main characters of the book — Wilber, Charlotte, Fern, Templeton, Avery, and the mother goose –– and came up with vocabulary words that described what these characters are like. Then the two classes compared what they came up with; surprisingly the classes had similar traits listed for the characters. Once the comparisons were complete, the students worked in teams of a first grader and a third grader and filled in dialogue bubbles of which character in Charlotte’s Web they were like and why.

“It has been so fun and exciting. Everybody is so into the book,” Ms Monahan said. “It’s just been wonderful to bring the story alive.”

School Principal Donna Pagé hoped the book would help the students as well as parents feel like a small community. The idea has worked, according to Ms Hammond.

“I think it brings the community together, just the enthusiasm has been wonderful. It’s spread to the custodians, to everyone,” she said. “It’s so natural [to incorporate the book into the classroom]. A lot of us have incorporated it into our morning meetings where we talk about the characters and what is happening.”

The students are just as excited as their teachers about the schoolwide reading program.

“It like it. I like Wilber because he is funny,” Robert Kokoski said. “I think it’s freaky [that everyone is reading the same book] because I’ve never done it before.”

The school will continue to read the book until a culminating ceremony on March 20.