Students spent a week celebrating reading and silliness during the Soboba Tribal Preschool’s recent Scholastic Book Fair. The annual spring event offers a variety of books for young readers that range in age from 3-6. Each day of the March 9-13 “Silly Week” offered a chance for children to show off their creativity.
Because “reading colors our world,” children were asked to wear their favorite color on Monday. Since “reading is crazy fun,” wearing their silliest socks or rocking a crazy hairstyle was Tuesday’s theme. Wednesday saw the students dressed as their favorite superhero or wearing a superhero shirt to remind them that “reading gives you superpowers.” Because “books bring out your wild side,” kids were encouraged to wear animal print clothing or a shirt with a favorite animal on it during Thursday classes. The week ended with an invitation for everyone to wear their pajamas to school to remind them to “cozy up with a good book.”
Pre-kindergarten teacher Ana Garcia took things a step further and chose R as the letter of week. Not only is it the beginning letter of reading but the children made rainbow bracelets as one of their many daily activities, which reinforced their color recognition skills.
Preschool Director Lenora “Ponie” Mojado enjoys the Book Fair because parents get to purchase books for their children to enjoy at home. Additionally, the preschool benefits directly from Book Fair sales through Scholastic Dollars, which teachers can use to purchase books, classroom materials, and educational items.
This year’s book fair was very successful, earning almost $1,700, some of which goes back to the school. “This provides teachers with valuable resources for their classrooms,” Mojado said.
Book Fair Consultant Jessica Cameron has worked at Scholastic for three years and served as the preschool’s consultant this year. Her role is to help to organize book fairs and talk to book fair hosts to help with planning events. She serves a large area and helps more than 650 schools in Riverside County, with about 100 of them being preschools.
She said every school that hosts a fair gets a percentage of the profits earned back in Scholastic Dollars that can be used to purchase books off of future fairs or to shop the Scholastic Dollars Catalog online that has many fun items from books, to book vending machines, digital products, outdoor toys, classroom resources, and more. They also offer 10 percent extra in Scholastic Dollars for schools that run more than one fair.
“We have been working with Soboba Tribal Preschool since 2016, there was a break during COVID (2020-2023) and we started back in 2024,” Cameron said. “It’s been my pleasure to work with Soboba Tribal Preschool.”
Cameron has always had a love for reading. “I love the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins,” she said. “My little sister and I read the books together in middle school/high school and won tickets from a radio contest to be able to go see the first movie at a local theater when it premiered. I’ve loved that Collins has continued the series with new additions as well.”
Mojado appreciates the work Scholastic does to curate the selection of books based on the age group served.
“For future fairs, we plan to order additional items such as pencils, erasers, and small novelty items that families enjoy,” she said. “We also consider what parents typically like to purchase, and Scholastic sends a variety of high interest children’s books. They also include a $5 table with chapter books for older elementary students. The $5 chapter book collections are especially popular with families who have older children, and parents often pick up books for siblings as well.”
Before releasing her students from rug time, Garcia asked each student if they had a favorite book. Many of them replied with the popular title, “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Rainbow” by Lucille Colandro. This is one that was read aloud to the class as part of their rainbow theme on March 12. Garcia commended the students for sharing and said all their titles were good choices.
“Our most popular books for sale this year have been princess-themed stories, Spider-Man books, and monster truck books, which the children are especially excited about,” Mojado said.
For more information, please visit https://education.scholastic.com/content/fairs/home.html.
Photos courtesy of the Soboba Band of Luiseño Indians
