A teacher sings a version of "I Gotta Feeling" Photo by William Imeson.
On Tuesday, February 14th, a group of Harrisonburg High School student athletes travelled to Smithland Elementary School to participate in a reading celebration day. Athletes from James Madison University had already come to the school to talk about their experiences with balancing athletics and school work and this was the first time high school students had come. The purpose of the day was to get the elementary students excited about reading and learning in the future with visits from student athletes and a pep rally about reading.
A total of nine HHS student athletes attended: seniors William Imeson, Sarina Hartman, Nevin Heckman, Joanna Hernandez, and juniors Taylor Grogg, Carrie Hofacker, Sarah Bell, and sophomores Sydney Knupp and Sarah Shank-Moreno. Accompanying them were athletic director Darrell Wilson and Tracy Calderon. They arrived at Smithland and were split up in to three groups. They then selected two books each which they would read to the children. The books were classics from Dr. Seuss and other well known tales and fables. The groups then went to kindergarten and first grade classrooms where the were introduced to the children.
Before names were even exchanged, the eager kids belted out their pep rally cheer. They had been practicing their cheers all day and were more than ready to show off their talents. This particular classroom was Kindergarten, so their cheer spelled out the word read. Next the HHS students took groups of the children and sat in circles and introduced themselves. The Kindergartners were all about 6 or 7 years old and very eager to have the story read to them. After a small discussion about what sports they liked, the reading commenced.
“I thought it was great to get to read to them,” Heckman said. “It was cool to see how much they enjoyed hearing about three little piggies.”
After about 30 minutes of reading in which the kids loudly voiced their opinions about each page, it was time for the pep rally. All of the students in the school swarmed in to the gym where a projector was set up and music was pumping. Multiple teachers led songs about how things like sharing and reading are good. One teacher even came bursting out of a side room to the tun of I Gotta Feeling by the Black Eyed Peas and started singing lyrics “I gotta feeling this book’s gonna be a good book”. The creative lyrics continued for multiple stanzas and the kids loved it.
“That was a great experience,” Heckman said. “I would definitely want to do it again.”
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