Allison Kieffner says that when her first-grade students found out on the last day of school that their book “Earth Day ABCs” had won a national contest, they were thrilled – and boisterous.
“(Avery School Principal Clare) Sullivan made the announcement over the loudspeaker and the kids were just screaming and cheering and dancing. It was hysterical. So it was a nice way to end the school year,” says Kieffner, who teaches at the Avery School.
She found out late the night before that her class had been named one of 28 winners in the Nationwide Learning National Book Challenge – and the only one in New England – from more than 15,000 schools and colleges that submitted entries. The Kansas-based company holds the competition each year as part of Studentreasures, its student publishing program.
“We just were doing this to get a book published and have the parents order it if they wanted to,” Kieffner says, mentioning that second-grade teacher Abby Hendler – whose class also created a book – “gave me everything I needed. And we started this so late in the year and it was so last-minute, at one point I was like, I don’t know if I even have the time to do this right now.”
But Hendler encouraged Kieffner to keep going. The teachers mailed their class projects together in mid-May, Kieffner says.
After Kieffner received an e-mail saying her students were in the running to be winners as long as they sent in consent forms, she sent three frantic letters saying, “Parents, please send this in as soon as possible so we can be considered!” she recalls.
Kieffner says “the kids were so excited about Earth Day, so I decided an ABC book would be good for first grade.”
For the book each of her students came up with an idea tied to the theme for their letter, then drew a picture to go with the letter. Seven-year-old Isabella Zaferacopoulos wrote, “O is for Ocean, Don’t litter the Ocean.”
“At home we had talked about litter … and we were talking about the big trash pile in the ocean” in the Pacific, explains her mother, Deirdre Zaferacopoulos. In Isabella’s drawing there is a horizon, beach, and a dark blue ocean – and black litter such as a Sprite can and chips underneath the waves, she says.
Each student did one or two letters. For her second one, Isabella wrote, “E is for Earth. Earth is our home living planet,” and drew a view of the globe from space, showing the water and continents.
“I was more impressed with the work than actual winning, in the sense that winning is great, but I was very proud with the kids for their ideas and what they came up with,” Deirdre Zaferacopoulos says. “Winning was just icing on the cake, but the book itself was very impressive, for first-graders.”
For the first of his two letters, William Shuley, 7, wrote, “N is for natural resources. Natural resources can be found anywhere on Earth. Wood, oil, coal and animals are natural resources.” Describing his work over the phone, Jen Shuley says her son drew a picture of a bulldozer that she thinks is “trying to get some natural resources out of the ground.”
“They all did such a great job and obviously put so much work into it, so much effort,” Jen Shuley says, adding that Kieffner put in extra effort teaching them about the writing process. “They should all be really proud of how the book turned out.”
The class also received $100, and Sullivan and each student are getting a free copy of the book. Kieffner, who is moving up to second grade next year, says she will find each student in September and give him or her a book and a blue ribbon that says “Winner.”
She noted that her students’ fourth-grade “book buddies” from Sarah Hausman’s class sat with them and helped brainstorm A to Z words. Kieffner also said that anytime she has “a little success or any achievement” she emails Diane Lowe – her mentor from the master’s program at Framingham State – who is going to request a copy of “Earth Day ABCs” and use it to encourage her students to get involved with the Studentreasures program after they’ve graduated.
But Kieffner’s main takeaway was that her first-graders “loved learning about Earth Day because it’s so relevant to them” – and all have ideas for what to do.
Ellie Pearrow had two letters – C for clean, and R for rainforest. The 7-year-old said of the book, “I like how it tells you how to help the Earth.”
After the project, a few kids started asking the custodian for plastic gloves and trash bags, so they could pick up trash on the playground. “And (the custodian) was thrilled, because less work for him,” Kieffner says, adding that the idea caught on, as other Avery first-graders began doing the same thing.
“They have so many good ideas for ways to conserve and recycle and reuse,” she says. “That’s why this book was so great, because it was so motivating for them. They really put a lot of effort into it.”
Dedham Transcript staff writer Edward B. Colby can be reached at 781-433-8336 or ecolby@cnc.com.
