I Love To Read Month may have ended a few days ago, but the practice of taking time out of the day to read continues on after the celebrations. This is only one of the ways that aspiring book-lovers at Parkland Elementary School were looking ahead throughout February.

"While meeting to decide on what our I Love to Read theme should be, we kept coming back to the idea that we feel Parkland School and Winkler are great communities," says Library Technician Kristine Heinrichs.

This lead them to choosing the theme "Building a Community of Readers One Block at a Time." The goal was to help foster the students into readers while the are at the school, and that this would also go with them as some of the students leave for Pineridge School in autumn.

To add to the imagery of "building a community," staff and students entered a competition that required them to build a Lego school through reading.

(Photo courtesy of Kristine Heinrichs)

Heinrichs says, "The students, depending on ages, read for a certain amount of time to receive one block. Kindergarten was 50 minutes, Grade 1-4 was 100 minutes and Grade 5-8 was 150 minutes. The students kept track of their minutes by colouring in Lego figures and during library class they received their Lego pieces to add to the 'school.' Staff did the same with 100 minutes earning a piece of Lego."

Roughly 530 students read for a collective 406,400 minutes, and approximately 60 staff members reported 57,600 minutes read.

"When the student came to library to report their minutes, for every Lego piece they also received a draw ticket. We also did 4 dress-up days where students also received a draw ticket. After drawing for free books each week for dressing up, we added those tickets also into the Lego set draw. As our theme revolved around building a community of readers, we thought that Lego sets would be a good prize and it did create a lot of excitement," she adds.

Along with the four Lego sets and ten books awarded to students that participated, special guests also stopped by the classrooms to read to the kids.

"We have created a 'We are a Reading Community' bulletin board where staff share which book they are currently reading. This has been an awesome way to show our students that the staff are continuously reading, as well as the students are able to talk to the staff about books they may be interested in reading."