By Julia Berg
In the K-2 classroom at the Carver Community Center, a couple of girls illustrate rainbows and hearts on the purple and blue construction paper they selected. They draw the rainbow using markers as well as the colored pencils and crayons found in one of their pencil cases. Camilla, sitting beside them, draws a grassy landscape on the orange paper she chose.
Soon after, our program director Waid enters to read aloud a book to the students. He reads one that a student picked out titled “Over the River and Through the Wood,” which is a fun take on the poem of the same name by Lydia Maria Francis Child with fantastical illustrations by David Catrow.
The book tells the story of a family’s trip to their grandparents’ house for Thanksgiving and is primarily written in enclosed rhymes, which he asks the students to identify after each section. After he finishes reading the book, Waid asks each student for one thing they liked about it. The students discuss the rhymes, the snow, the balloons, the gorilla, and the pumpkin pie at the end that caught their eye.
Volunteer Julia Berg tells us lively stories about our summer and after-school students at the Carver Community Center. See more of her stories here.