Blue Ridge pupils parade
Pupils of Blue Ridge Elementary School donned outfits similar to some of their favorite literary characters and marched around the school Friday in their annual book parade.
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Blue Ridge Elementary pupil Brianna Moore wears a gigantic eye, a symbol used in the book A Series of Unfortunate Events by Lemony Snicket, during the Earth Day Book Parade at the school.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
"Each classroom chooses their favorite book and they make costumes and signs that represent that book," said Jeff Collman, the assistant principal at Blue Ridge. "It's kind of an effort to get kids excited about reading."
Representing kindergarten through third-grade classes, some pupils wore paper rabbit ears for Hopper Hunts for Spring, by Marcus Pfister, and others carried toy gardening tools and wore overalls with straw hats to depict Mrs. Spitzer's Garden by Edith Pattou.
To honor Earth Day, which was the same day as the book parade, students from Cathi Hamilton's third-grade class dressed like geologist characters in The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth, by Joanna Cole.
"We studied several rocks and minerals, and many books besides The Magic School Bus Inside the Earth," Hamilton said. "They were all very excited to kind of display some of the things they learned."
Paraprofessional Kay Hamilton shepherds her second-grade pupils along the parade route in front of the school. The children portrayed bakers from the book Little Nino's Pizzeria, by Karen Barbour.
Photo by Jim Blaylock
Tommy Brown, 9, said his class's geology theme for the parade honored Earth Day.
"I thought it was appropriate," he said.
"Earth Day is about the Earth and we've been studying rocks and stuff."