Along with the regular scheduled November Family Reading Night held at the Pea Ridge Intermediate School, the theme for the night centered on diversity appreciation.
The school media center specialist, Mrs. Shannon Brown, pulled books for easy access for the students to read and review. These books covered different cultures around the world and introductions to biographies of people who faced challenges of diversity for young readers. These books helped children learn about great people in history for example Helen Keller.
The Pea Ridge Intermediate School choir performed a song, "Mighty United," directed by Mrs. April Smith. There was a large attendance from the choir members and their families.
Mrs. Kathy Hall, Gifted and Talented Director, was there and provided the students an opportunity for a hands-on riddle challenge. Her program is designed to provide children the support for their creative and exceptional needs delivering specialized instruction and aligned to Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
Mrs. Donna Boyd, fourth grade literacy teacher, worked with Mrs. Rica Shackelford, fourth grade enrichment teacher, focusing a lesson on diversity appreciation with an alignment to CCSS. The lesson used the children's book "The Junkyard Wonders" by Patricia Polacco. This book discusses bullying, inclusiveness and appreciating the talent in everyone. In these classes the, students discussed their strengths and compared to the traits of the book characters. Mrs. Boyd helped the children make a fourth-grade class video sharing how they were special. Along with the video, the students contributed to a Diversity graffiti wall to celebrate everyone's differences which hangs in one of the main hallways. The fifth grade joined in this celebration by adding their own graffiti wall.
Students from the High School Spanish Club read "Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day" by Judith Viorst. The club members had multi-cultural items on display and engaged the students with a craft.
The students have use of the accelerated reading program at this school to help with their reading comprehension assessment. Both the books used for the event are within this program, and the multicultural books available to the students all can be used for building the children's reading skills.
Mrs. Bonnie Fullmer provided brochures and pamphlets to help inform parents about the Bright Futures program. They could learn about the ways this program is already helping our economically disadvantaged students within the Pea Ridge School District.
"I feel this event helps the school organization learn and understand the differences and needs of students and their parents," Boyd said.
"I really like to mention and thank Sam's Club for meeting my request for the donations and the owners at the Rainbow House Asian Bistro for the ample supple of entries. With the involvement from the school staff and community support helped make this event successful," Boyd said.
Mrs. Crystal Marquez, part of the Spanish Club from the high school, and Mrs. April Smith, music teacher, who organized the choir at the Intermediate School, helped with the event.
Community on 11/12/2014