NORFOLK — Students at the Botelle School have been on a mission for the last two weeks — to read as much as possible. Maryanne Beauchene, school media specialist, started "Get Fired Up for Reading" to coincide with the Chinese New Year.
"The Chinese New Year runs for two weeks. So we did a cultural theme," said Beauchene. Even the art teachers got involved and assigned Chinese-themed art assignments to each grade level.
Beginning Feb. 11, students were urged to read for a set amount of time each day for 14 days. Students in kindergarten, first and second grade were urged to read, or be read to, for at least 20 minutes each day for 14 days. Third- through sixth-grade students were asked to read 30 minutes per night for two weeks.
With an ultimate goal of 57,720 minutes of reading for the entire school, teachers and faculty were thrilled when they learned their students read for 80,362 minutes in just 14 days.
"We did this just to get the kids excited. Winter is a slow time of the year before baseball starts," said Beauchene.
Each day teachers would collect forms from the students indicating how long they had read, with a parent’s signature confirming the time. Students would then receive a "scale" that would be placed on a dragon in several of the corridors at the elementary school.
The dragons, approximately 3 feet high and 8 feet long, were covered with the 2-inch scales. Six dragons in all populated the school. Students read so much during the two-week program that teachers actually ran out of scales, said Beauchene.
On Tuesday, Feb. 26, students celebrated their accomplishments with a parade through the hall of the school, complete with an authentic Chinese dragon costume.
"Our Spanish teacher, Mrs. Wu, donated the costume. Her husband is Korean," said Beauchene.
The top boy and girl reader in each class had the privilege of wearing the dragon’s body. Principal Tim Lee wore the large dragon’s head.
The dragon snaked back and forth through the halls of the school with students from all the classrooms lined up on either side of the corridor, cheering. After turning around in the library, the dragon made a final trip through the halls.
The names of students who met their goal of reading 20 or 30 minutes each day were entered into a hat. Next week one name from each class will be drawn and that student will have to opportunity to read to Remmington, a therapy dog at Botelle.
Remmington, a poodle, is owned by Beauchene, who has been volunteering her time and her pet and meeting with the special needs students at the school.
Many of the students at Botelle have become familiar with the therapy dog and Beauchene thought that the extra incentive for the students to win an opportunity to read to Remmington would be a nice prize.
"Remmington will like it, too," she added.
Meg Sher, executive director of the David M. Hunt Library in Falls Village.L. Tomaino 
Samir LanGusProvided
