Project READ Families have FUN at March Story Hour!
This month 80 learners, families and friends joined us to celebrate National Reading Month at our monthly Story Hour. The purpose of Story Hour is to immerse our families in literacy and help build their home libraries by offering a monthly "Family Book," given to each family in attendance and creating a gallery of books for students to select from. This month our "Family Book" title was Animal Boogie.
One of our favorite story hour performers, Andy Z, helped engage our students in a world of imagination through his interactive show. Students joined in the adventure as they danced, sang and boogied along the way. Students then took part in three different crafts related to the book and theme of the night. An edible craft was included to help introduce health literacy; students learned how to create their own
trail mix and take the recipe home to recreate with their families.
Hands On Bay Area (HOBA) volunteers were also there to help our families create their craft projects. Second Harvest Food Bank, a community partner, provided nutritious snacks including fresh cauliflower and yellow squash.
Celebrating St. Patrick’s Day at Our Story Hour
Project READ learners, families and friends took part in our second family Story Hour this month held at the Fair Oaks Branch Library. Families celebrated St. Patrick’s Day with children’s performers and staff. The children sang along to songs inspired by the monthly family book, Animal Boogie and listened to live Irish music.
In addition to the family book, families were able to self select new books to continue to build their home libraries, and students then created several pre-literacy crafts related to the theme of the evening. Volunteers from Hands On Bay Area (HOBA) and Volunteer Match helped the students make crafts throughout the night. Community partner, Second Harvest Food Bank supplied healthy snacks of mixed fresh produce for our families including cauliflower, bell peppers, carrots, onions and potatoes. We received a generous donation of toys and stuffed animals from Shanna Flanigan much to the delight of our children! Thank you!
Project READ Art Hour Series!
Families, students and volunteers joined Project READ exploring different techniques modeled by some of the worlds most recognized artists. We started our evening with the book ‘Ish” a story about creativity and the artistic process. “Ish” imparted an important message to kids about the various ways in which art can be defined. Our families made three crafts, one was a mosaic inspired by Gaudi, next a self-portrait taken after Klee and finally a color exploration inspired by spring colors and the outdoors. Twenty families were in attendance, what a fun evening!
In March we continued our art series designed to introduce new and collaborative art techniques and projects to our students. The first program in our series was “Art Hour.” It was a huge success, attended and enjoyed by youth, adults, families and volunteers.
Technovation & Innovation: Project READ Girls Take on Tech!
In order to spark interest and inspiration in the ever-impacting world of technology and Apps creation, eight Project READ girls participated in the ‘Ask the Experts’ event sponsored by The Junior League of Palo Alto-Mid Peninsula and Technovation last week. This was an opportunity for young women in the Bay Area to meet with female experts in the Tech industry. Experts were available to talk about their careers in a round table layout. These experts provided tips, guidance and motivation to become the next Technovation applicants. More specifically our students learned about app development, marketing, finance, project management, UI/UX and pitching/public speaking. This was a motivating event for Project READ youth and staff, exposing our young women to the technological community that they live in.
Project READ Adult Programming:
This month Project READ matched 11 new adult learners with new Project READ community tutors. They along with other Project READ learners met with their tutors for over 550 hours working on career goals, gaining US citizenship, completing college classes, reading to their children and increasing their reading skills.
Adult Computer Literacy Lab for English Language Acquisition and Phonics:
Project READ welcomed 39 new adult learners who used computer aided learning programs to improve their literacy skills. The adults worked to improve their pronunciation, vocabulary, reading and spelling skills using Rosetta Stone and Lexia Core 5 learning programs. Logging in an amazing 482 hours this quarter!
Project READ Learning Together
Book Club Week 3: We offered two Book Clubs for our youngest learners and parents this month. With the help of our Junior League volunteers, 15 young learners took part in each round table Book Club. This month we read The Best Birthday Ever and Bug and Bear. Students then created a related pre-literacy craft project with the help of our Junior League volunteers, teen and preteen tutors. Students made a crown craft for The Best Birthday Ever and for Bug and Bear students made friendship bracelets. Each family went home with the new book to practice reading together.
Family Literacy Instructional Center – (FLIC) Game Night: Project READ’s Game Night continues to shine and remain a strong presence in FLIC. In this month's Game Night, kids and tutors played Monopoly, Let’s Talk, a conversation starter and several puzzles for our younger learners. New games are introduced each month to expose students to new activities and to work on varied focus areas. Our tutors helped make this a successful night by taking part in the games and modeling expressive language and appropriate team building strategies.
Spring Baskets Filled With Art Supplies and Goodies: With the generous support and contributions from Holly Tambling and Trinity Church of Menlo Park, Project READ learners received 250 spring baskets. Students were thrilled to receive their spring baskets filled with books, pencils and pens, games and some yummy candy. This has been an ongoing tradition for the past five years! We are so grateful for the generous spirit of our Project READ supporters. Thank you to Trinity Church!
Project READ Learners in FLIC: Project READ served 38 students on average each night in FLIC. There are a total of 100 active youth learners in the program with 30 teen tutors and 10 adult tutors.
Project READ Teen Tutors: Every month FLIC holds a tutor training for all new teen and preteen volunteers. This past month 10 new teen volunteers went through the training and all have begun tutoring in our Family Literacy Instructional Center.