With students reading to one another, Middle Gate Loves To Read Week came to a close on Friday, April 10.

The week began on Monday, April 6, with a presentation shared by third grade students in teacher Clair DeSisto’s class with the entire school, during to assemblies.

As Middle Gate reading specialist Lina Silveira explained before the presentation, the week is a celebration of all the reading activities students do daily and promotes a continued love of literacy.

Middle Gate Loves To Read week included the entire school holding a One School One Read effort, with each school community member reading Pennies for Elephants by Lita Judge, who is scheduled to visit the school in May, and other events and efforts, like book trivia being shared each morning, an African safari-themed room being set up for students to read in, and a penny drive to raise funds for renovation and conservation costs for the habitat of a bald eagle named Kodiak at Connecticut’s Beardsley Zoo.

Ms Silveira also explained that parents awarded students at home different coin amounts for finishing chores to help collect money for Kodiak. A board at the school was also decorated like a newspaper, called the Middle Gate Post, to share stories about all the chores students completed.

On Friday, fourth grade students were reading to kindergarten students in the African safari-themed room, which was decorated with elephants, taller than most of the students, a stuffed-animal monkey hanging from a tree, and paper across one wall of the room to appear like a sunset.

“I really like the decoration,” said fourth grader Emma Smith, who was reading with fellow fourth grader Eli Stan and kindergartener Aarav Shetty, “especially the elephants.”

Aarav agreed, adding that he likes that the elephants were “so big.”