By Natalie Bazinet
Staff Writer
LIMESTONE — Kindergarten to fourth-grade students of the Limestone Community School celebrated friendship while reinforcing the building blocks of literacy on Oct. 22 during Friendship Friday. Students spent the morning singing songs, piecing together crafts, reading books and making friends.
Organizers Renne Parente, speech pathologist; Cindy Edgecomb, literacy specialist and Librarian Norma O’Keefe were pretty much in agreement that their favorite activity of the day was having all the grades come together for a sing-a-long.
“The point of the event was to appeal to all intelligences,” Parente said,
“And we did!” Edgecomb added.
The literacy trio found ways to make similar crafts and activities appeal to all ages; to make decorating cut-out hands with friendship themed phrases and art appealing to all the grades, younger students were given large, pre-cut paper hands for their arts while the older students were given the challenge of tracing and cutting their own hands out for decoration.
While unbeknownst to the students at the time, LCS staff used the hands to adorn the halls with a friendship-themed handholding decoration strewn about like garland.
Not all the books students read during Friendship through Literacy morning were about stereotypical happy hand-holding friendships, however.
Third-grader Trinity Howard, 9, liked the book “Don’t Need Friends,” by Carolyn Crimi, which is about a rat and a dog that decide they don’t want to be friends with each other, but after the dog gets sick and the rat shares a salami sandwich with the dog, a reluctant friendship is formed.
Trinity explained that sometimes when a new person moves in to an area, they might be pretty grouchy and not want to make friends at first even if they secretly want to. But asking someone to be your friend can make all the difference. “You can either be lonely or you can be with someone you care about,” she said.
Trinity also described how sometimes fights friends get in aren’t really worth getting upset about. She had a friend, for instance, and the two frequently argued despite the fact that they really liked eachother.
“Sometimes it’s just not worth fighting,” she said, adding that you can always tell someone that you still want to be their friend despite a fight.
Friendship Through Literacy organizers were pleased to find out that the third grader was so receptive to the morning’s lessons.
Yes, every student learned to spell “friend” and developed other literacy skills, but by learning about friendship students also learned how to not be a bully, whether they realized it or not.
Event developers had a long discussion about bullying before the event.
“Bullying is really hurtful, but teaching the students to be respectful of one another builds that bridge of friendship,” Edgecomb said.
O’Keefe also mentioned that focusing on bullying has a negative feel, while focusing on friendship keeps kids thinking positive.
“Activities were all-inclusive and there was no way for students to fail,” Parente explained, adding that it gave the students an opportunity to relax during the school day and have fun. “If they didn’t know how to do something, then they could ask another student and make a new friend.”
By incorporating all classrooms from K through 4, students had an opportunity to positively interact with other kids that they may have otherwise not been afforded an opportunity to get to know.
The final event of Friendship Friday was in the form of autograph book creation and signing — students decorated their autograph books with words and images depicting friendship and then scampered about gathering signatures of all their friends — including the teachers and, in some cases, parents and grandparents. Organizers were tremendously pleased with the parent/grandparent turnout as their involvement with students’ literacy largely impacts the youth’s success in reading.
The impact parents and grandparents have on their young one’s reading capability is so large that it inspired O’Keefe, Parente and Edgecomb to host an ABC (About Books and Children) group on Oct. 12, which was attended by almost 10 adults. The most important thing for parents to learn is the necessity to make reading fun.
“Print is all around you,” Parente said, suggesting various ways that parents can engage their child on a literary level.
The next major literacy day for students won’t be until after Christmas, but during the night of Parent Teacher Conferences in November, free books will be available for adults to promote reading with their children.
While every child in grades K-4 at LCS now knows how to spell “friend” Parente had a couple suggestion for budding-readers: “split the word into two chunks,” she said, suggesting that readers remember ‘Friend to the end’ in order to remember how to spell the second chunk.
