Elementary School

The Elementary School Literacy Festival team created a day of ACS Literacy Adventures to engage students in imaginative, playful, and joyful reading and writing opportunities. The ES Literacy Festival team -  comprised of Caroline Miller, Sophia Moros, Valeria Laitinen, Zoe Karatza, and Sophia Tsinakis created numerous adventures from "Campfire Stories” in which learners joined volunteer book guides at cozy campfires (not real) to explore stories of fun, fantasy, and mayhem to a "Story Walk" in which learners experienced an outdoor reading experience where pages of a book are printed and placed along a walking path to "Book Trailers" in which learners had a chance to watch a sneak-peek of new titles and genres to enhance their love for reading to "Graphic Novel Book Making and Author Bios" with an extra special illustrating helping hand from Steven Baldino, to "Book Tasting" in which learners moved from table setting to table setting of "book genre menus" to experience different kinds of books to many, many, many more literacy adventures! Also, the day was buzzing with favorite book characters as students, faculty, staff, and volunteers were all encouraged to dress up like a favorite book character for the day! The ES Literacy Festival Team would like to extend their appreciation to ALL for this beautiful day of literacy. Every bit of help, enthusiasm, and imagination made all the difference. We hope to continue to improve this celebrated event each year.

Some of the positive feedback received from ES faculty:

"An exciting journey through various literary genres. Watching our students connect to their favorite book characters was gratifying."

"It was great that the kids could be outside and enjoy the sun while also enjoying a great book." 

"Students enjoyed all the activities they joined. They especially loved the book trailers and book tasting! The campfire idea was also a big success!"

"The JK students really enjoyed the story walk. The box of favorite characters was also great, where the students were able to create their own stories by deciding how they wanted their story to start, what happened in the middle, and what happened at the end." ; "The students were engaged and enjoyed all of the events that they visited."

Middle School and Academy

The Middle School and Academy Literacy Festival Committee, comprised of Dr. Marco Crivellaro, Michael Januzzi, Helen Seretis, and Bobby Zervas, organized a Virtual Literacy Festival this year. Students explored a number of interesting topics such as LGBTQ  and Literacy, Waging Peace through Visual Literacy a d Poetry, and Writing Better Stories. 

In the words of one educator, “I was amazed by how Middle Schoolers came to our class in Block 6 (last block of the day) and really changed things for us. They were so enthusiastic and ready to help with the tasks that all high-schoolers in our class started working immediately, collaborated, and ultimately had fun!

Creating original drawings, after a lot of thinking, was the outcome!

We all enjoyed it so much!”