Elementary School Hosts Annual Book Swap

Last week, the Elementary School hosted its annual Book Swap, a parent-organized event aimed at promoting a love of reading through a campus-wide book exchange.

In preparation for the event, donation bins were placed on both campuses for Elementary and Middle School families to drop off their gently used books for four days during morning carpool. A team of parent volunteers collected and sorted over 3,800 donations, organizing the books by reading level and topic. 

To promote the book collection and encourage excitement amongst their peers, Elementary School Student Council members designed informational posters and bookmarks to display around Norton Campus and distribute to each class when they visited to make announcements about the event. 

Then, over the course of two days, parents transformed the Joanie Martin Community Room into a beautifully immersive book-shopping experience inspired by this year’s theme, Get Blown Away With Books. Volunteers covered the walls with festive paper kites, cotton ball clouds and a large sun crafted from colorful construction paper. Bright signs on each table indicated topics of interest such as science, sports and holidays, while additional signage noted “just-right” reading levels for first, second and third graders. Graphic novels and chapter book series were organized by volume. 

Each grade level visited the Book Swap twice, perusing the variety of options before choosing three to four books to bring home. Having the autonomy to decide which books they wanted to read not only excited Crossroads’ young readers, but empowered them to seek out the stories that personally resonated. 

“In kindergarten it’s especially important, because a lot of them have imagination and story understanding and comprehension that’s far greater than what they can actually read,” said kindergarten teacher Taylor Parker. “In class, we have them choose ‘just-right’ books to make sure they can read sight words and learn patterns. So this is an opportunity for students to engage with stories that they’re really interested in. Even if they’re being read to and not reading it themselves, and just doing a ‘picture walk’—it makes them feel that autonomy as a reader and excitement as a reader that they’ll experience when they get older.”

After each of the classes visited, adults in the Crossroads community, including faculty, staff and parents, were invited to choose books to take home for family and friends. Student Council then reconvened to sort and box the remaining books, 1,599 of which were donated to J3 and LevelUp LA, nonprofits that provide resources to local after-school community programs. 

The Elementary Schoolers were thrilled to pay forward their love of reading inspired by this year’s Book Swap. With thousands of books collected and distributed among Crossroads community members and organizations benefiting the greater community, this year’s Book Swap was a smashing success!