The Spring Book Fair, from March 29 to April 6, was sponsored by the Transition Partnership Program (TPP) and WorkAbility I under the Career and Technology Education Department. The fair served to raise funds for High School Juniors and Seniors who are involved in Work Experience Program on campus.
The book fair invited the CSDR community to ‘Catch the Reading Wave’, where friendly sharks, crabs, turtles, seagulls, and pelicans helped to create an environment that had students want to kick back, relax, and surf into a good book.
Alexa Ontiveroo
The book fair was in the Old Media Room across from library in the Seeley’s Building. The room was spacious enough to allow people to browse over 700 different items appropriate for all ages. The books and products came from three different companies including Scholastic Book Fairs, Dawn Sign Press, and Buy.ASL.com. Two of those vendors provided many wonderful books, DVD, and other resources regarding Deafness such as ASL texts, books written by Deaf authors, Deaf History, and Deaf Culture. Students, staff, parents, friends of the Deaf Community, and ASL students from different colleges stopped by.
The book fair also hosted a variety of school wide events. We hosted a Teachers’ Preview event with free refreshments a day before the fair opened. We invited a deaf philatelist, Kenneth Rothschild to give a presentation to the High School students in the Social Hall. Kenneth collected stamps and postage markings from around the world that reflected the culture of Deaf people. ECE Department had a special craft project and had its children make crabs with red painted paper plates. They had a lot of fun. We also had storytelling for elementary students in the book fair. Our master storytellers were Shari Kido and Georgette Visco. They signed in ASL with many classifiers that included the beach. For Middle School students, we hosted a treasure hunt. The students had to find a picture to match a book title or author. The winners of the Treasure Hunt were Espie Dillard, Cameshal, Ian Vasquez, and Juan Dillard. They chose a free book for the prize. Scarlett Bernstein and Georgette Visco’s High School Deaf Studies class gave their ABC and 123 stories to the audience.
Neil Miles - 1st Place Drawing (Upper Elementary)
Lastly, we hosted an essay and drawing contest for all students. Over 100 students participated. The contest was based on criteria beach theme. The judges were Erika Thompson, Melissa Brown, and Rick Fertig who commented that it was quite difficult choosing the best pictures and drawings. Winners include: Malia Zoronza (ECE), Mireya Carranco (Lower Elementary), Neil Miles (Upper Elementary), and Alexa Ontiuerous (Middle School) for Best Drawing. Chris Morton (Middle School), Zane Fleming (High School), and Annette Campos (High School) won prize for the Best Essay. The winners had the choice of a book from the book fair, and their work is displayed.
Christopher Morten - Best Essay (Middle School)
The combination of various activities and companies for the book fair was successful. In fact, we will do it again this fall from September 24th to the 28th. The book fair will take place over Back to School Night as well – join us as we celebrate the Blizzard of 2007.
