East Fannin Elementary School held their first literacy event on the school’s campus Wednesday, October 16.
“We did a math night last year and we’ll do one this year, but this is our first literacy night,” Academic Coach Renee Carder said. “We’ve had grade level specific family fun nights but those are not connected to school.”
The literacy night featured a camping theme with hot dogs, chips and s’mores. This theme tied in a variety of literary activities including story tellings in the new outdoor classroom with Media Specialist Gary Baxter.
“We wanted parents to see it (outdoor classroom),” Carder said. “This is something new to East Fannin so they really haven’t yet. The kids have seen it but the families have not, so we wanted them to be able to go out there and check that out.”
The Craddock Center also performed puppet show readings for the younger readers.
Between reading times, families were able to take part in a variety of activities including a book walk, marshmallow STEM activity and a photo station. Every student who participated in the book walk had a chance to win a free book.
“All of our prizes are pretty much books,” Carder said. “We used a new program through Scholastic that is the Family Community Engagement part of Scholastic. They do free shipping and reduced prices on books as long as you give them away to kids. So, at the end of the day, the only stipulation is that kids have to take them home.”
Fannin County School System Director of Instructional Services & Policy Sarah Welch explained the importance of literacy events.
“Having these literacy nights and making it a family event really serves to highlight the importance of literacy,” she said. “Parents get to see their kids excited. It’s a little outside of the norm. We’re typically used to those family events maybe being something like a sporting event and that’s not every child’s passion.
“This gives different people a place to shine, but really literacy is such a foundational and important skill for every single kid, human, person that anything we can do to support that and support their excitement and their engagement and getting better, we take that as a real priority.”