Starry-eyed students wrap up reading month

WEBUTUCK — This year’s People as Reading Partners program (PARP) went out with a big bang, as Webutuck Elementary School hosted a giant inflatable planetarium in its gymnasium.Two reading programs dominated the month of March at Webutuck Elementary: PARP and One School, One Book.PARP encourages children to read for at least 15 minutes each day with their parents. Every Friday during the month of March students brought in a checklist signed by their parents confirming that the students had met the reading quota on at least five days of the week.For One School, One Book, the school chooses a book and buys copies for every student in pre-kindergarten through third grade. This year’s title, Eleanor Cameron’s “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet,” was distributed to 300 students.PARP and One School, One Book work in tandem for most of the month, and the book chosen provides a theme for the different activities that are held throughout the month. Keeping with the outer space adventures of “The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet,” the school brought the Mid-Hudson Children’s Museum’s Starlab show, a giant inflatable planetarium that students and teachers climbed into, where the guide takes them on a journey to the stars.“We hadn’t done a final show in years,” explained librarian Beth Murphy, who heads the PARP program every year. “We had Starlab because it just tied in so perfectly with our theme.”The students’ reaction to the presentation was the perfect way to end the reading initiative, she added.“I never would have thought that you could put 17 kids in that planetarium and have them as engrossed as they were,” she said. “You never heard a sound from any of the students once they were inside.”After a record high 89 percent of students participated in PARP last year, numbers dipped a little this year for the program, Murphy acknowledged, but there were some bright spots, including very strong first-grade participation.One School, One Book still has two chapters left to go, given the length of the book, Murphy said. All the students who participated in PARP this year will receive a certificate in a wrap-up assembly.“We even had pre-k students participating in Starlab this year, which we haven’t been able to do before,” the librarian added. “But the presenter was really good. A true educator, she really differentiated for them based on their level, and had every one of them engrossed.”