Summer Sun, Books & Fun!

This summer marked the ninth consecutive year of the Hopkinton Recreation Summer Read Aloud Program!  The program invites Chariho staff members to volunteer an hour of their time to read aloud to the camp's participants.  (The reading program also took place in Charlestown and Richmond!)  The students get so excited when they know one of the people who has shown up to read to them!

In my group we read "The Trail" which was one of my RICBA favs!

Mrs. Allen, teacher at CMS

Mrs. Medina, teacher at CMS

Mrs. Potter, teacher at CMS

The two chapter books selected by the students going into grades 5 and younger, The Trail and The Wizard's Dog, came from a list of books nominated for the Rhode Island Children’s Book Award (RICBA).  During the school year, students are encouraged to read at least three of the books from the list in order to vote for the winner.  In addition, several of the schools (including Ashaway) hold competitions called the Rooster Games based these nominees.  By selecting books from this list, the children participating in HopRec will already have one of these books completed by the end of the summer or, at least, will have gotten an extended preview!  We also had Scar Island available to the older students; this book is from the Rhode Island Middle School Book Award list for grades 6-8.  These students got a start on qualifying for the middle school Book Battle!

This summer's featured book nominees!

In addition to our "chapter book" groups, there is also a bin of picture books for the younger kids. Miss Chloe, one of the HopRec counselors, enthusiastically jumped into presenting these and I'm grateful to her for extending the fun to them!

picture book time!

A fun game of Duck, Duck, Goose went with that week's theme of "geese"!

Guest reader Mrs. Bliven from Ashaway School brought along her daughters.  They are playing with a moose hat.  Can you guess what that week's theme was?!

No matter which group a child joined, every one of them spent an hour each week interacting with some excellent books.  It truly is a wonderful program, and I'm very proud to be a part of it.  My sincerest thanks go out to the fabulous staff at the camp who were so accommodating in order to make it all possible and to the staff members who volunteered to participate!