CTA is celebrating March is Reading Month school-wide!

In the elementary, Ms. Lane created a bulletin board filled with staff and student book recommendations. There have been a slew of parents and community members in the building as mystery readers, and 4th & 5th graders are building a Yellow Brick Road to Oz as they log their reading!

The freshmen created a world map for students in grades 6-12 to promote reading books from around the world, and secondary students are accumulating as many reads as they can throughout the month. Students are competing to see which class can read the most!

ALL students are having a shared reading experience through ​One School – One Book​, partnering the elementary and secondary together! Every Monday morning in March, K-5 students read Barbara O’Conner’s ​Wish​ with their secondary partners, and preschool students and their partners will read a variety of picture books. You can find students throughout the campus reading and discussing together. ​Every student will be able to keep his or her copy!

Happy reading, everyone! 

Kindergarten and second grade students are excited to read with Red Flannel Festival Royalty!

This year, to celebrate Reading Month our CTA Elementary students read their tails off as they filled our Reading Fish Tank!

Elementary students sit in front of their “Fish Tank” on the wall that they filled with books they read.

For every book read (or chapter if it was a chapter book) AT HOME or IN SCHOOL, students cut out a colored fish and hung it up on the fish bowl. CTA Elementary filled the fish tank in two weeks – that is a lot of reading. To celebrate, they watched Finding Dory and ate ocean-themed snacks with their reading buddies.

The Red Flannel Festival Queen and court also made time to visit CTA and read to the kindergarten and second grade students. The queen read one of her favorite books and then took time to answer questions from the students.

CONGRATULATIONS CTA on another successful March is Reading Month!!!

Davenport University Basketball players Nick Gamble (L) and John McCloud (R) read to the CTA second grade class.

Friday, March 4 was “Sports Day” in the CTA elementary and students received a visit from some famous West Michigan athletes. The nationally-ranked Davenport Men’s Basketball Team, stopped by to spend time reading with the students a few days before they embarked on their trip to play in the NAIA National Tournament. The Davenport team came in to play games and interact with the students before breaking out into the classrooms for some small group time where they read their favorite books and shared their knowledge of basketball and life. “It was pretty cool to have the team here because they were talented and very tall,” said CTA second grader Gavin Olsen. “I really liked when they came back and read to our class, but most of all their dance moves at the assembly.”

This visit was part of CTA’s March is Reading Month program, which has weekly activities for the students, as well as extra time to get lost in a good book.

Mrs. Atkins reads to 2nd graders

March was Reading Month and it is a favorite of ours at CTA! We Chargers really get into the friendly competition of reading. This past March was no different. Our theme was “Isle of the Reading Chargers.” Each grade had its own pirate ship that moved every week depending on the number of hours read. In order to reach the first island, “Port of Poems”, classes had to read 50 hours. The second island, “Port of Fairy Tales”, the class had to read 150 hours. When classes reached each port, the teacher would read texts from those specific genres to his or her class. When classes reached 400 hours, Mystery Readers arrived to their rooms. Pictured below: Mystery Reader, Mrs. Kelly Atkins, is reading to our lucky second grade class.

Mr. Oldebekking gets sprayed with silly string

The K-8 staff set a goal of 4000 hours throughout the whole month of March. After the first week, students in grades K-8 read almost 1000 hours! Each week of March, we met altogether and unveiled the leading class. It was a tight race between three grades throughout the month; first, fourth, and a surprise appearance by the sixth grade class. In the end, the first grade pulled out the win; they read over 720 hours during the month! Since they were the highest reading class, the students were able to pick a staff member to spray silly string. Of course they chose our much-beloved Mr. Oldebekking! During our Student Showcase, the first graders were able to silly string him in front of the whole school! This year’s March is Reading Month was quite the success! Thank you everyone for your support of this initiative!

CTA K-8 during the Month of March read 4339 hours! WAY TO GO CHARGERS!!!!

Almost 250 first-graders were at the Kent Theatre Monday and Tuesday to celebrate March is Reading month and their brand new library cards.

The Cedar Springs Public Library launched its 16th Annual First Grade Library Card Roundup last month, in partnership with the Kent District Library, Cedar Trails, Creative Technologies Academy, and Algoma Christian School.

“The program is largely successful due to the classroom visits by Children’s parapros Shannon Vanderhyde, of Cedar Springs Library, and Sara Magnusen, of KDL, and the great cooperation and support by each first grade classroom teacher,” said Cedar Springs Library Director Donna Clark.

First graders and their families were invited to celebrate “March is Reading Month” by getting a library card and thereby gaining access to hundreds of thousands of books and other materials available at the 81 libraries and branch libraries in the 8 counties served by the Lakeland Library Cooperative.

Free movie passes to see “Nut Job” at the Kent Theatre were issued to all 320 first graders, paid for by the Cedar Springs Public Library via a grant from a local Cedar Springs sponsor. Students showing a library card also got a free popcorn to eat during the show, compliments of the Kent Theatre. About 246 came to the movie and almost every single child/family had a library card.

Just before the movie started, local children’s author Amanda Litz hosted a drawing to give away 6 of her books, one of which was just released that afternoon. To find out more about Amanda, her books, her new bookstore located at 25 S. Main, and the events she has planned, go to her website at www.travelerstrunkpublishing.com

The library card program was originated in 1998 by Mike Metzger, a former library board member.

March is reading month—which means it’s time for all first graders to get a chance to sign up for their very first library card.

Cedar Springs Public Library and KDL’s Sand Lake/Nelson Township Library team up to visit kids at school and get them excited about this new privilege.

Shannon Vanderhyde, Youth parapro at Cedar Springs, and Sara Magnuson, youth parapro at Sand Lake/Nelson Township, recently visited 11 first grade classrooms at Cedar Trails Elementary, and one at Creative Technologies Academy to hand out the envelopes with information on what to do. Algoma Christian will also receive a visit this year.

The cards are good at any library in Michigan.

To celebrate, all first graders get to attend a movie March 3 and 4 at The Kent Theatre for free, with other family members welcome for $3 each. The movie is “The Nut Job.” Doors open at 5:30 with the movie starting at 6:30. A child’s library card or family library card entitles the first-grader to a free small popcorn that night. Just present your card at the concession stand.

March is Reading Month and our elementary school is celebrating! Grades K-5 set and exceeded their goal of 600 books for the month and met last week to set a new goal. 4th Grader Gillian Crowder gave this report:

“Today at CTA, students are reading like crazy! It’s a reading frenzy! The elementary students had a goal of 600 books, and they have already read 853 books as of last Wednesday, March 20th. With one week left, can the elementary students reach their new goal of 1000 books, or will the frenzy fail? Stay tuned to find out if they’ll meet their goals.”

School Leader, Dan George, reads to the CTA 2nd graders

The elementary grade levels of Creative Technologies Academy challenged one another to a reading race throughout the month of March. Since March was designated throughout the State of Michigan as “Reading Month” the first grade made a challenge to the rest of the elementary at a kick-off celebration in late February. When asked about the challenge, Mrs. Jamie Pressler, first grade teacher and originator of the challenge said, “Utilizing a school-wide challenge is not only fun for everyone involved, but it truly gets the kids’ noses in books because they want to read and do well to help their classes, not just because they have to.” The challenge stated that if a student reads for a certain length of time with an adult then those minutes allowed their class to move the racecar along the “reading racetrack” in an effort to win the race!

Every Monday and Thursday the entire elementary school came together to cheer on their race car, as the teachers were able to move their cars according to how many minutes their class read that week. Kyle Bohl, Director of Student Services stated, “It was great to hear young people reading throughout our classrooms, hallways, offices and playground throughout March. Students took charge of their own learning and when that happens it’s definitely authentic.” Many students were able to read with an adult of their choice at school if they did not have an opportunity to read at home with a parent or guardians.

A celebration of enjoying rootbeer floats as an entire elementary was the culmination to a wonderful month full of reading. The class with the most minutes read was honored in an extra special way, however, with this race, everyone won!

Four happy first graders show off their library cards at the Kent Theatre.

In what’s become an annual event, first graders at Cedar Trails Elementary and Creative Technologies academy were invited to celebrate “March is Reading Month” by getting their library cards. This is the 15th year of the event.

Cedar Springs Public Library Director Donna Clark visited Creative Technologies Academy to hand out envelopes with special invitations to 20 first graders and families of Mrs. Presler’s class to get a new library card. Shannon Vanderhyde, Children’s Parapro for the Cedar Springs Public Library and Sara Magnuson, Children’s Parapro for Sand Lake/Nelson Township Library and Kent District Library presented the special invitation letters to the 11 classes at Cedar Trails on February 22, which included about 270 students.

All students who registered for or already had a library card were invited to see a special showing at the Kent Theatre of “The Adventures of Tin Tin” on Monday and Tuesday this week. About 212 first-graders and family members attended the event.

Cedar Springs children’s author Amanda Litz was on hand to raffle off three books each evening from her “Sam and Pam can and you can, too” series.

Mrs. Presler’s class at Creative Technologies Academy were happy to be invited to get their library cards.

Clark said they are appreciative of their partnership with the Kent Theatre in this endeavor. “It’s really great to have a theatre in your own hometown,” she said.

Clark also paid tribute to Cedar Springs resident Mike Metzger, who started the annual drive. “The library card drive began all those years ago because Mike Metzger had a dream and a passion to see that every child in the first grade had a better chance of becoming a proficient reader early on. It was his idea to start a Library Card Drive through the Library, and he is as passionate today as he was then,” she said.

Mrs. Sendler’s class at Cedar Trails were also happy to be invited to get their library cards.

Students in Mr. Moleski’s fourth grade class are showing their team spirit to celebrate March is Reading Month. The students wore red on Tuesday, black on Wednesday, and white on Thursday.
The challenge for these students is to read 20,000 minutes as a class in the month of March.  The students all wear the same color clothes to show unity in their goal; they are like a team and they all must rely on each other. Plus, the students think it looks cool when they walk around the school!