LUMBERTON — East Robeson Primary School students took a break from their classes Thursday to parade through the halls dressed as characters found in books written by famed children’s author Dr. Seuss.
The Dr. Seuss Character Parade was part of the school’s week-long belated Read Across America celebration, which promotes reading and honors the “Green Eggs and Ham” author. Students dressed as characters such as Horton the Elephant, Sam from “Sam I Am” the Lorax, Cindy Lou Who, and the cat from “The Cat in the Hat.” Even a hot air balloon took three laps through the halls while the other students cheered and watched. Leading the students in the inaugural parade were the hat-wearing Cat in the Hat and the Grinch.
“I thought it was awesome,” Principal Lewis Cox said. “We got a creative bunch of teachers and students.”
Tiwanda Hair was particularly proud of her seven kindergarten students who dressed up and participated in the parade, especially a student dressed as the Lorax.
“Her mom did a really good job,” Hair said. “Really, all of the parents did a really good job.”
Olivia Watson, another kindergarten teacher, seconded Hair’s motion.
“It was very creative,” she said of the costumes. “It was great because it got the parents involved.”
First-grade teacher Kelly Britt said she encouraged her students to not feel like they had to buy a costume, but to be creative. She said one student came in wearing a yellow mustache made of cardboard that he painted and tied with pipe cleaners and yellow coloring on his face so he could look like the Lorax.
“You know, it’s just little things like that,” Britt said.
The school began its celebration on Monday and continued all week with days themes taken from Seuss’ books. On Monday students wore shirts with a Seuss quote. Tuesday the cafeteria took part in the festivities and served green eggs and ham. Wednesday was “Dress to Impress” day for the book “Oh the Places You’ll Go.” Thursday was Character Day, and Friday is Twin Day, inspired by Thing 1 and Thing 2.
Also on Friday, the school will announce the winner of the decorating contest.
Each grade level’s students and teachers decorated the halls in a theme inspired by one of Seuss’ books. The students decided together on a theme. The third-grade class chose “Fox in Socks,” second-grade chose “If I Ran a Circus,” first-grade took on “The Lorax” and the kindergartners went a theme from “Oh the Places You’ll Go.” Each wall featured settings, characters and quotes from the books.
Hair and Watson had their students write down where they would like to go in a hot air balloon and what they wanted to do when they grow up.
“I think we really got to see the talent,” said Lateisha Hunt, the school’s media coordinator. “Just the things that some of these teachers are able to create, you wouldn’t really know about.”
The competition will be judged by administrative staff from the Public Schools of Robeson County and members of the community. The winning grade, which will be announced Friday afternoon, will earn their teachers a free lunch and a week of wearing jeans.
“We only get to wear jeans on Fridays, so we’re looking forward to that,” first-grade teacher Sarah Smith said.
“The idea was to hype reading. We want our kids to read every night, and we want them to understand that reading leads to them being successful,” Principal Cox said. “That’s the point of everything we did.”
