Students Participate in Battle of the Books at Washougal Elementary Schools

The stage is set for the Battle of the Books at Washougal Elementary schools.

“The idea for the battle started at a Professional Learning Community (PLC) meeting of elementary library assistants last year,” said Kathy Stanton, Hathaway Elementary Librarian.  “We decided then to have a competition between our schools in April of this year.”  Library staff at Gause, Cape Horn-Skye and Hathaway Elementary schools chose twenty books for the battle and in September began encouraging students to read those titles. 

“A student must read eight books to qualify to compete on a battle team,” Stanton explained.  “There are four or five 4th and 5th graders per team. Teams are asked questions from any of the 20 books. Each question begins: "From what book....?", and each team answers with the title and author of the book they think the question is from.”

Points earned with correct answers decide the winners.

This spring, each elementary school will have an in-house battle to choose their top two teams. Then, on April 14, the winning teams will meet at Washougal High School to battle for the top honor.

Hathaway Elementary fifth grader, Brienna Elliott, from Erin Hayes’ class, was recently recognized for having already read 14 out of the 20 battle books.  Her prize?  She was given a special parley with the “Pirate King,” aka David Tudor, Washougal School District Curriculum Director.  The two sat down in the library over lunch last week and discussed her accomplishment and chatted about the books she had read.  Tudor also visited classrooms to help spur on excitement in the contest. 

Washougal High Reader's Club Creates Tree Honoring Troops for Festival of the Trees Event

“I’ll be Home for Christmas” is the inspiring theme of the Festival of Trees tree decorated by the Washougal High School Book Club members.  The eight-foot noble fir will boost dozens of student-made milk carton houses, more than 800 lights and 100 feet of yellow ribbon garland.   It will be auctioned to the highest bidder at the annual Festival of the Trees celebration on December 6 and 7 at Hathaway Elementary, 630 24th Street, Washougal and benefits Washougal Schools.

 “The book club buys all the materials and does the building.  It is a lot of fun and is a good thing to do,” said WHS Book Club president Sarah Hardy. “The money raised by the auction of the tree will come back to the high school.”  The Book Club is one of the WHS organizations benefiting from proceeds.

Approximately WHS 12 students have been working on the project since November, under the leadership of Fran McCarty, Washougal High School library aid.  They meet at lunch hours, 3rd period and after school. McCarty came up with the Christmas song theme and immediately thought of US troops aboard. “The students have really put their heart into this project,” McCarty said. “And they have had a lot of fun being creative and seeing it all come together.”

Hathaway Elementary Adopt-A-Shelf program

Sixty fourth and fifth graders at Hathaway Elementary have adopted a shelf in their library as part of a new program. The idea for the Adopt-A-Shelf program came from Library Assistant Kathy Stanton's daughter Jacqueline, from a book she was reading. Kathy loved the idea and decided to try it at Hathaway.

Students choose a library shelf they want to take care of and Kathy puts their name and grade level on it, asking that they check on their shelf at least once a week.

So far, 32 4th graders and 28 5th graders have adopted a shelf.

"I have been having the best time watching our students take care of their library," said Kathy. "Younger students (kindergarten, 1st, 2nd and 3rd graders) have noticed the names on the shelves and want to help too. Right now we are working on an idea for creating a Pick-A-Job garden for our younger helpers. Hathaway's library will shine!"