Weston School teachers turn
storytellers for special program
By:Mary Ellen Zangara
The first storytelling event was held March 11 at Weston School. The event sponsored by the Manville Education Association for a night of storytelling as the teachers shared their favorite stories with the children and parents.
Between 225 to 250 free tickets were given out so students could come with their families to listen to their teachers as they read for the hour.
"The Manville Education Association is hosting a storytelling event where the Weston teachers and (Principal Don) Mr. Frank are going to read to the students," said Laura Landau, one of the first-grade teachers who helped organize the event. "Students went to the different rooms to hear the stories told by the teachers. Each have different themes or different authors or types of books."
Coming up with the idea was easy as Ms. Landau has done regular story telling in the past.
"I’ll probably tell some stories without any books because I have been involved through Borders and storytelling events where you just tell stories to children," she said. "It helps the kids see different types of reading besides their parents and their teachers and it helps get them a little bit more excited about reading. I think that is really important."
The teachers at Weston chose favorite books and sat down in a room as the children traveled around to listen to them read.
Besides Ms. Landau, Tracy Austin read Rosemary Wells books, Margaret Santonataso read from the "Little Bear" stories; Dawn Cozenza shared her favorite Marc Brown books; Sharon Liszczak read fairy tales; Patty Ruano read stories in Spanish and English stories; and Madeline Perry read "Fairy tales with twists."
Others who read their favorite stories were Lynn Hendrickson ("Franklin"); Alissa Calandra reading "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs"; Kristy Scola (Syd Hoff); Jennifer DuBois (reading Margie Palantini); and Vicki Perkins, who read "Blueberries for Sal."
Cindy Cooper came prepared for reading her favorite book "Pooh and Friends" as she dressed up as Winnie the Pooh and sat on the floor in her classroom to read to the children who stopped by to hear the story.
Her daughter, Katie, joined her for the evening, dressed as Tigger.
Walking around the halls, visitors could peek into a classroom and hear Cristina Casale reading Laura Numeroff or Lori Linderman reading an Eric Carl book; Ellen Wruble reading a Marc Teague book and Ellie Wolf reading Mercer Mayer.
Mr. Frank was in the auditorium reading nonfiction science and nature stories and first-grade teacher Mary Tammaro read stories by Robert Monsch.
In a kindergarten classroom, Robbie Koffler read a book about insects to the children and Ms. Landau told her "Twisted Fairy Tales."
All of the children and adults sat in the classrooms quietly listening to the teacher reading their favorites.
After the reading was finished, all were invited to share some cake provided by the MEA.
"We were lucky enough to have the Manville Education was willing to host this," Ms. Landau said. "They served cake, and the teachers were willing to donate their time at night to come back and read to the kids.
"This was a way to encourage the children to read and get the community together for an event and to show different styles of reading, she added. "I think it is so important to have schoolwide events."
Maybe that’s the best story of all.