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Book Joins Students In Reading, Activities

Photo by Suzanne Schmidt

Quail Hollow Elementary Students Stephen Chillura, left, Victoria Cannon and Shane McGough try to get a volcano to erupt by adding more baking soda. The students kicked off the One School, One Book program with the volcano experiment. Each student in the school is expected to read the book, "Phineas L. MacGuire...Erupts," and then do various activities and answer discussion questions.

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By SUZANNE SCHMIDT

In the Loop

Published: November 16, 2008

WESLEY CHAPEL - Quail Hollow Elementary School students are coming together through the "One School, One Book" program.

All the students in the school are reading the book, "Phineas L. MacGuire ... Erupts," then talking about the book and taking part in related activities. The program will go on through December.

Students are taking the book home and reading it aloud with their families, reading it in class and doing some buddy reading, said Annella Foshee, the school's media specialist. Some teachers are also reading the book aloud and putting it on DVD, allowing everyone to have some type of access to the book.

The book is a good choice for all grade levels, even though it is on the Sunshine State Book list for third- through fifth-graders, she said.

"The chapters are short and high-interest," Foshee said. "It only takes about 10 or 15 minutes to read a few chapters. It is our hope the whole school will get to read the book. We are expecting the family to read aloud together. After they read aloud, we also will give them discussion questions and activities to do that go along with the book."

According to Foshee, the book offers insights into what children are going through every day at school and teaches them about science.

"There are lots of experiments discussed throughout the whole book, which is why we decided to kick off the reading project with each class getting to build a volcano," Foshee said. "We made volcano kits with all the ingredients premeasured and handed them out to the classes."

Fifth-grader Victoria Cannon liked the book because she learned a lot about science from the main character, Phineas Mac.

"He had to do an experiment a couple times before he got it right," Victoria said. "I learned sometimes you have to do things more than once to get it right. I also learned you can change so if you are mean you can become nice."

Fifth-grader Stephen Chillura said he thinks the book is spectacular.

"It is a great book that I can relate to," Stephen said. "I really like the character Mac R because he likes dinosaurs, and so do I."

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