around the uft
Education by the book
Feb 4, 2010 6:24 PM
A group listens to Torrey Maldonado, social studies teacher at MS 88 in Brooklyn and author of “Secret Saturdays,” his debut novel. (You can learn more about him and the book at www.findingdulcinea.com/features/interviews/
By the end of the afternoon, there were many little aspiring authors and illustrators of children’s books.
Parent Angelica Callahan and son Gabriel explore one of the literacy activity tables.
Stirring up excitement about the world of books was, after all, an intent of the Family Literacy Festival at PS 125 in Manhattan.
The Saturday afternoon event, held on Dec. 5 in partnership with the community-based organization Morningside Area Alliance, featured read-alouds, activity tables, workshops tied to literacy and, most popular, a generous book giveaway.
What’s more, said 4th-grade teacher Esther Williams, most of those books were signed by the authors and artists who created them. They had come to the school to read from their work and talk with kids and parents about life in the imagination lane.
College student Diana Baron-Moore (left), a volunteer from the national organization Jumpstart, which partners with Morningside Area Alliance, gets a feel for the Manhattan PS 125 community. With her at the Family Literacy Festival is parent Winter Ma and student Shanchu Chen.
“We promote the event to all schools in District 5, but families wind up coming from all over,” said Christine Petro, school-community organizer of the alliance.
And it’s no wonder the festival is popular.
“It’s fantastic,” said Williams. “Children create collages and puppets based on book characters, color in characters and make bookmarks,” she said.
The entire third floor of the school was designated for the event. Williams hosted the illustrator Javak Steptoe in her room, which was crowded with kids and parents.
“He was a former student of PS 125 and remembered my classroom from when he was a kid,” Williams said.
It was not just students who were enriched by the event.
“The poet Sandra Estevez was in my classroom with the parents,” said 5th-grade teacher Lucy Terry-Lopez.
“They were really interested in a poem she read that was inspired by her grandmother,” Terry-Lopez said, “and she shared stories about her life, then parents shared some of their own life stories. They loved it.”
Terry-Lopez, like her colleagues, has been able to keep the energy going by carrying over some of the festival activities to the classroom. In her case, Estevez met with her for “a brief lesson on a symmetry exercise I can implement in the classroom,” Terry-Lopez said.
She added that the event had a great effect on the school community and that “there was a great turnout.”
The event was good news from another perspective, according to Chapter Leader Benjy Blatman.
It heralded the end of a three-year dry spell under a principal “whose actions resulted in basically stopping all of our alliances,” Blatman said.
“Now, with our new principal, we are reforging old alliances to make our school community stronger.”
The ultimate stars of the literacy event, which included a huge book give-away, make their appearance.
