Northwest students visit Camp Read A Lot

Tired of ads? Subscribers enjoy a distraction-free reading experience.

Three little girls sat in a row, lifting full cups of water over their heads and passing them on to the next child, oh-so-carefully trying not to spill.

A few feet away, a trio of boys also sat in a row, taking part in the same activity but perhaps not worrying as much about getting wet.

In other sections of the playground on the grounds of Northwest Area Primary School in Huntington Mills, kids were hurling water-soaked sponges — “We’re playing toss, not dodge ball,” PTO volunteer Stacey Neville gently reminded them — holding relay races while carrying containers of water and in general having a splashing good time.

Welcome to Camp Read A Lot, a weeklong program designed to encourage reading. This year’s program, which concludes on Tuesday, has an “Under the Sea” theme, and Thursday was “Beach Day” with an cookout, colorful leis, and more than one teacher sporting a festive grass skirt.

Indoors, students had 25-minute shifts in the library where guest readers shared stories with them.

“It’s one of the highlights of my year,” guest reader and high school principal Ryan Miner said after reading a story about a hermit crab to the first graders.

When the story was finished, the students scattered in groups of three and four into tents they had helped assemble — tents covered with mermaids, or a big octopus, or made to look like a whale, a coral reef or the pineapple where SpongeBob SquarePants lives. There was even a treasure chest filled with sparkly toy coins.

Every student had a book, ready to read, and they told a reporter that reading in a tent made reading more fun.

“It’s all to instill a greater love of reading,” reading specialist Amber Hasay explained.

The fun continues with children wearing blue on Friday for Ocean Blue Day, bringing a stuffed animal to school on Monday as a Reading Buddy and bringing a book about water or the ocean or the sea to school on Tuesday.