Lee Erwin reporting
lerwin@clarksvillenow.com
CLARKSVILLE, Tenn. – The imagination of students and teachers at Carmel Elementary School literally jumped off the pages of books Friday for the school’s 2nd Annual Storybook Character Day Parade.
One kindergarten teacher, Ami Wigington, talked about the event and why they were celebrating reading. “The children are dressing up like their favorite storybook characters so we’re really getting them in their books, getting them to know who their characters are and finding story elements that they’re able to pick out. This really helps with their reading enrichment,” said Wigington.
Just about all of the close to 550 kindergarten through 5th grade youngsters were dressed as one of the characters from a book they had read. The students were scheduled to walk around outside the school as part of their parade but because of the cooler weather they gathered in the foyer of the elementary school.
Principal Rosanne Sanford introduced many of the teachers in costume as they paraded through the students in the foyer. Ms. Sanford also recognized many of the students for the number of books they had read. After the Storybook Character Parade the students returned to class to learn more about the books they were reading and focusing on the different characters.