001okay hello everybody it's the african-american reading assembly this is such a wonderful assembly i am so excited nick me too miss estes did you know that this is our eighth annual african-american read-in here and it's such a special occasion i came four years ago and it was the first time i had had an african-american read-in and i was so excited and it's been so special every year since yes we have so many guests come and join every classroom and this tradition actually goes all the way back to 1990. yeah it was started by the national council of teachers of english as a way for us to elevate and showcase and celebrate this rich african-american literature writings poetry do you know who was the very first african-american writer in this country in this part of the
002world no i don't well she was writing before the country even was started phyllis wheatley oh phyllis wheatley of course yes she was a poet and today we are going to be celebrating poetry in so many different forms and i just want us to be mindful that phyllis wheatley she started in the effort to bring poetry to the masses in a space where she wasn't even supposed to be able to read and write incredible incredible what a story i love it and we're going all the way to the present day with the inspiration of the 22 year old inaugural poet amanda gorman oh give me kills you're giving me chills so you know this is a uh i like to think of it as like a a sacred space that we're all coming together you
003know out there in the virtual land i was thinking about the big circle we make on the first day of school when we're in person so it's kind of like this big circle all together yes as we create our very first virtual african-american we are making sure we envision our entire wildwood family being in community together holding each other in our hearts knowing that we are being safe and that we are protecting each other in this time absolutely and we have a very special guest here at the assembly an old friend of wild woods do you know who it is i i i have a guest i'm wondering he is a musician an accomplished musician he has he has a fabulous cd called rights of passage that he is uh put together with his group
004called the oneness project oh i know who it is saxophonist and a vocalist he is actually co-directed our chorus for a couple years so so incredible when he was here with us and he is also a phd student in african american studies at umass we're going to be calling him doctor one day i think we're ready to add him to our stream let's everybody out there in wildwood land welcome the one and only matali banda matali hello friends can you hear me oh we can hear you [Laughter] all right um thank you all for having me oh our pleasure matali i'm glad to be here we are we are so thrilled so matali you're going to bring us all together at the beginning of the assembly with a special song that i understand you you
005wrote you created right i wrote i wrote some of it and some of it was inspired by an arrangement to uh to a ziggy marley song i do what they do with the kiddos and so they'll know they'll know that part and then i wrote my own lyrics and and i start every show i do with this song how beautiful it feels like a prayer i call it morning mantra and um i wrote the lyrics after um another great black icon left as kobe it seemed really appropriate to talk about you know it's very hard to get up when it's hard you know but we do it anyways and so i sing this to myself every day wow but i believe in starting spaces with it because i do feel like it it breathes air
006into the room in ways that not a lot of thrones can wow beautiful so if this will remove ourselves from the stream and then let metalli just uh take over um and everyone out there is sounds great all right so if you're listening i want you to repeat this after me [Music] and if i go down then i go down [Music] i go down then i go down swinging i still smiling in my heart still singing [Music] hey [Music] [Applause] [Music] three [Music] i know how it feels when it's hard to make away but we ride today ain't no easy way to get through the day when it's hard we say [Music] i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm [Music] i still smiling in my [Music] singing [Music] let's try this one more time [Music] i'm [Music]
007i'm gonna [Music] in my heart [Music] hey i love it that you sing that to yourself every morning what a way to start the day thank you yes how beautiful natalie thank you so much yeah we're all going to be thinking and singing that song when we're getting out of bed in the morning i hope so so now now i go backstage we're going to send you backstage and then we'll see you to close out the assembly all right i'll see you all right thank you okay wow wow that is a way to start the day good intentions knowing that we're here to manifest good things and not give up that's that's all we can do yeah i love it so you know thank you matali and then every assembly uh miss allison sorry okay
008not the new name but the way that you prefer to be called at wildwood in every assembly we recognize students whose teachers are saying they have been shining stars they are bringing light into their virtual classrooms to their friends and to their teachers and to themselves so can we get started yes and this is just a small sampling i want you all to know that we know you are bringing light in so many different ways even if your name's not on this list exactly you want to do the first one i will i will this is one is from miss heard and she would like to highlight leah cunningham as a shining star leah's word for 2021 is enthusiasm and she really has been trying her best to model this in the classroom she shows
009up every day excited ready to learn and to try new things she's been coming out of her shell more and more and sharing herself and her ideas confidently she finds ways to enthusiastically encourage students to achieve our class goals and she is a great leader and a friend to our community it's beautiful thank you leah for bringing that light to your community and this is also from second grade from miss applegate jalen jalen you always try your best even when the work is hard recently when you face challenging work and math you got out your base 10 blocks your pencil and you got to work you do not give up and you are gaining confidence each and every day way to go jalen yes and this one is from ted johan definitely is a shining
010star he's in the sixth grade math group with ted and he is strikingly helpful strikingly helpful indeed he helps ted with technology and tips and he makes the lessons work more smoothly johan also helps the other students in the group and he tries all the math work that is presented he does all of this with enthusiasm there's that word again enthusiasm on an upbeat attitude one way to go johan and coming from mary lee austin she'd like to suggest eli is a shining star he has worked incredibly hard for weeks and weeks and weeks definitely fulfilling the tea and i try my best in the star motto not only that miss allison he is flexible respectful and responsible following through outside of class oh i love it this one is from kate who would like
011to nominate ethan ethan he's been really flexible with learning to work with new teachers and he's been doing such a good job way to go ethan and the next group is from mossy woods jay and jay janiece and jayani we're so proud of these two students when the year first started both were very leery they weren't quite sure about math but as the year has progressed they are being rock stars they're sharing they're thinking verbally asking to try again if they make a mistake trying harder problems way to go janiece and jayani and also for gigi he um has been a superstar in math she works hard every day asks questions when she doesn't understand offers to support others when they are struggling we are proud of her go gigi and that's gigi grace i
012found out that grace likes to go by gigi it's a way to go grace gigi and last but not least we have jace jason grade 4 is using oh such an important skill social intelligence many kinds of intelligences to notice when teachers or students are confused and then he reaches out to help way to go jace are so proud of these shining stars and all the other stars in our school if you are out there helping teachers helping your other fellow classmates you are a shining star thank you so much for being members of your um your classroom community so we're going from the shining stars at wildwood miss estes to a shining star who really has lit up the world yes yes she is a poet who has just busted onto the scene during
013the inauguration and she gave us chills she gave us chills she wrote a poem in the moment sometimes it can take a long time to write a poem but she wrote one in the space of maybe a month i think it took her to write her poem and it was so accurate and important for the time we're living in and she was amazing in presenting it at the age of 22. she's a baby a baby so we're going to see an excerpt necessities because after the so many people wanted to to talk to her she was interviewed by a lot of uh you know hosts on on tv and this comes from an interview with uh james corden people know him from carpool karaoke and broadway on the street i don't know what that's called
014oh that's great and so he asked her a really important question he said to her you know you're such an inspiration to young people so what message do you have for them oh yes let's hear her answer to that question and all of the students at wildwood can feel like she's talking right to them so here we go it's a very short excerpt from amanda gorman thank you that's a phenomenal question for me it's to know that poetry and art in general means showing up with your best self whoever that may be and that in itself is beautiful you know hearing you talk about the grace in which i performed my poem as someone who's had to like work for years to overcome a speech impediment that means everything to me it means that i
015can still show up and carry this history and this background with me and still be more than worth it and more than enough and i hope that that's what other young people see from this today whether you're a poet or not an artist a dancer a late night host like the more that we can bring our authentic selves with hope into the moment the more that moment will show up for us i mean i i i sit there and i think to myself i wonder if our elementary students who are ages 5 through you know 12 if they are understanding this idea of authentic self because it's so hard to understand when you're so young what does that mean but she's kind of giving you examples of it in terms of believing in yourself and
016not shying away from the things you want to be the things you want to try the things you want to say exactly yeah yeah and we'd like all of our students to feel that inside of themselves so speaking of which we have a group of sixth graders who feel it and are brave enough to recite some of amanda gorman's inaugural poem so let's invite them to join us here's jude and elia and quinn and nina and violet welcome to all of you [Music] so i know um you're about to read the poem um the excerpts from the hill we climb i'm gonna how about if we we talked a little bit about why you chose because you each chose certain lines so one at a time you could just briefly tell me um is all
017right here oh where's ola lara thank you oh thank you so much oh lalara ah how do you like that i'm so sorry ola lara in my stream scrolled down so there you are thank you for remembering everybody that's a full group so one at a time could you just say why you chose the words that you did and i'm just going to go in order i have jude elia lalara violet nina and the queen okay so i'll unmute you and you could just briefly tell us you know why you chose those words the words that you're about to read all right go ahead jude um i chose my words from the poem because i think that like being like coming together and being a community is really important and like those like and like
018that like really represented that beautiful thank you jude all right elia i thought the words that they were cool they are the way she uses language is incredibly cool thank you elia hello lara whoops um i chose my words because i like how they um represent like hope and like stuff like that so yeah beautiful violet i chose my words because i was the last one to choose and those were the only ones available i like them either way thank you for your honesty nina um i chose my lines because a lot of people suffered throughout this time and my lines really tell that story and quinn um i chose my lines because i really like the way she read them at the inauguration there's like such purpose in the lines okay so miss estes
019and i are going to remove ourselves so we just see all of you and you know the order and um take a deep breath and and ready to go okay good luck everyone yeah you're gonna be great okay we'll start with when the day comes we ask ourselves where can we find the light in this never-ending shade the loss we carry a sea we must wade we fray the belly of the beast even that quiet isn't always peace in the norms and notions of what just is isn't always justice and yet the dawn is ours before we know it somehow we do it somehow we've weathered and witnessed the nation that isn't broken but simply unfinished we need the successes of the country in a time where a skinny black girl descended from slaves raised
020by a single mother can dream of becoming president only we lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another we seek harm to none in harmony for all let the globe if nothing else say this is true that even as we grieved we grew that even as we hurt we hoped even as we tired we tried that will forever be tied victorious and yes we are far from polished far from pristine but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect we are striving to forge our union with purpose [Music] we will rise from the goldland hills of the west we will rise from the windswept northeast where our forefathers first realized revolution we will rise from the lake rimmed cities of the midwestern states we
021will rise from the unbaked south we will rebuild reconcile and recover and every known nook of our of our nation and every known corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge when day comes we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid the new dawn blooms as we free it for there is always light if only we are brave enough to see it if only we are brave enough to be oh if only you're brave enough to be it and you all are brave to come and to share that your reading with us thank you for your bravery thank you so much thank you sixth graders beautiful so thank you for joining us uh keep being brave and we're so proud of you here thanks everybody that's fabulous huh what words so
022miss estes we have more and more at this assembly to share and we have another sixth grader and we're going to try to find him fernando who emailed me and said i'd like to speak at this assembly can you imagine that he just felt like he had something you want to share and i'm we're going to wait uh we're going to move ahead but um we're gonna find him and get him backstage i sent him the link so why don't we move over that and i think we have you have someone special to you i i do i have someone special to share um so i wanted to introduce some of the teacher students have met my son alexander we call him xander he is a person who is a writer he is a person
023who has learned how to play the guitar during the pandemic and in inspiration of amanda gorman he chose a song just for her and so this is a song for amanda gorman and the effort to be your authentic self hi wildwood um i'm here i'm going to sing a song for black history month uh put your records on by corinne bailey ray [Music] three little birds sat on my window and they told me i don't need to worry [Music] maybe sometimes the more things seem to change girl put your records i hope you get your dreams [Music] maybe sometimes we the more you stay the same the more they seem to change don't you think it's strange girl [Music] somewhere somehow [Music] just more than i could take [Music] jeans i hope you get your
024dreams go ahead and let your hair down you're gonna find yourself somewhere somehow that's my baby boy oh my goodness hello how beautiful oh what a beautiful voice well he's he's worked on that voice i mean when you think about the things we do to bring our true self to the world you have to practice and he has worked on his voice for a long time but the guitar playing is his pandemic hobby so that is something he's just learned and i just wanted the kids to see that this is you know it takes work to become your authentic self it doesn't just come you have to work at it yes how true how true and speaking about authentic cells we have a sixth grader backstage who's ready who feels empowered ready to share something
025he wants to share some thoughts with us so fernando let's we're going to welcome you hi fernando hello hi so thank you for reaching out to us and saying you have something to share with people thank you um so we're going to be talking about black lives matter covert and some of the elections so okay so so fernando before you begin let's take a deep breath and you came to wildwood in second grade right fernando yeah yeah and uh where where were you before you came to wildwood jackson street in northampton northampton so then he came over so it's been so great to watch you grow and become who you are as a sixth grader thank you miss estes and i are gonna get off the screen and just let you share your thoughts with
026everybody because at wildwood we we really believe students have lots to share all right thank you take it away all right so before i start i just want to say thank you to chris for helping me and like um helping me with the essay and nick for making this happen so um hey wadwood it's been a long time i've talked to you guys my name is fernando today i'm going to be talking about 2020 slash last year yeah i i know it wasn't the best year but let's get kicked things off with black lives matter um mr george floyd sadly got killed by a police officer and there was a big protest that happened i'm sad that racism is still going on because you met your life matters you stand up when you feel something
027bad is coming that's why you have rights people like imagine i have a red apple and a green one i eat both of them inside of them it's an apple at the end of the day you're human and you matter now let's let's move on to the election congrats to mr joe biden and vice president kamala harris kamara harris um was the first african-american asian-american woman vice president honestly right now the people do it i mean sometimes i am here at my house wondering how do the homeless people do it um the world isn't the best sometimes the world isn't the best i want to fix fix these problems and make the us a better place now we're staying saving the worst for last corporate 19 it's been killing people all around the world i
028mean like last month some of my family members got copied my great-grandma got it i was upset but i gotta keep going they're good now so i'm happy but some people didn't make it so can we please have a moment of silence amen i also gotta gotta make this sixth grade year one of the best years every teacher i had second to sixth grade is amazing and y'all know who you guys are when i leave the school i just want to say fifth graders next year is your turn to be the leaders of the school anyways bye have a good day everybody you did it you did it fernando oh i love your voice i love your passion thank you thank you fernando get me lots of shout outs in the chat fernando you have
029a lot of people out there who support you and are really feeling inspired so thank you thank you so much and uh 2021 the flat part for you and for you you're going out of wild with strong flying high thank you all right i see you fernando i see you thank you for sharing your authentic self with us today thank you all right take care fernando we'll see you soon okay you did it you did a beautiful job thank you i'm feeling chills yes so in this you know we're hearing students and their teachers are developing ways for us to hear their voices and so what one way they're doing that is by recording themselves with something called flip grid and we're about to hear a group of third and fourth graders i can't wait
030i haven't seen this so i'm very curious get ready these are um i think they're called found poems and they're inspired by amanda gorman's another poem of hers called um morning oh i can't remember the name but it's a very uh she wrote it at the beginning of kovic and they listened to her poem and then they kind of felt the images and the themes and then created their own poems okay and the last thing i want to say amanda gorman said that in third grade that's when she first developed her love of poetry because because of a teacher the team got her inspired so let's we're about to hear these third and fourth graders doing original poems nice let's hear it well the first thing we did was our teacher put on a video
031of amanda gorman reciting the miracle of the morning and got to talk about it in groups it was very inspirational and then we went to writing we had when we were writing we have to write what we see what we felt and kind of put a little bit of our lives into it what's happening around us and stuff and we and so and then we got to carve it so we can carve it into what it is what our poems are now and what i love about amanda gorman is that when you're writing you're supposed to take the reader with you on what you did and what happens in the story and amanda gorman really took us all really takes us all with her when she's reciting her poems so we can really we can
032real so we really know what is happening and what her poem is all about this phone poem is inspired by amanda gorman harder and harder times by juwan brave and peaceful people humankind and kind words emerging strong sunlight smile sweetly harder and harder times our hearts are growing stronger at these challenging times poem inspired by amanda gorman spreading hope by jorah and kiana looking out the window we see people doing the things they love my cat is walking in the snow the snow the snow is falling in big clumps kids are chasing their dogs i listen to the rainfall it makes a brighter day in the world no matter how small you are you will be together life is like a light bulb how hard we try to destroy it we can't cannot we should
033start reading children's books that tell the truth of life when we have hope it makes a difference and helps people around us we can spread that hope to everybody everyone spread hope everybody spread hope hi my name is lena this is a found poem inspired by amanda gorman emerge sun light right eyed girl hope emerge together beings best of beings smiling sweetly fate and that's the end of my poem goodness oh my god oh my god that was amazing oh my gosh brooke johann georgiana lina oh my gosh you oh just oh oof that isn't that was work they they were they were working on that stuff wow what a great great share we can just take that uh happiness the inspiration we feel into our days so thank you we've been talking a lot
034about bringing joy and light into the world and and uh your poetry third and fourth graders certainly did that that was amazing awesome thank you thank you so much okay so we are getting close to the end of the assembly uh miss allison may i call you allison that's fine and we always like to leave a little bit at the end of the assembly uh before we have our closing poem and song to say goodbye and good wishes to our shooting stars and we're saying goodbye to three students who are going to different places so shall we do that yes with our with our full hearts from the poetry we'll be sending them off so here we go ah do you want to do this one miss estes stay june kim in grade four sejun
035always likes the specials art and the book club you will miss every one he will miss everyone in his class as well as the book distribution oh say june i'm going to miss you i'm going to miss you and say june will i think will still be with us to the end of the month but this is we're saying goodbye now because we won't have another assembly until then yes and then we're saying goodbye to a brother and sister who's lastly i think is next friday so this is sarah jung in grade 4 also and she says i really enjoyed going to school at wildwood all the teachers were so nice i enjoyed all the specials and all these other things i will miss all my friends and all the teachers bye sarah i'm going
036to miss you and her brother yep my buddy andy he's he's in grade six and he says what i will miss most about wildwood school is all the nice teachers they have always treated us very well and i feel so bad to leave so near the end of my elementary school days so sarah and andy are not moving that far away to eastern massachusetts to lexington yes and so now and say june's going back to south korea so now we all of us in the wildwood circle out there in your homes we we imagine seijun sarah and andy in their new schools making new friends having great teachers in the new homes we make that picture in our mind we're sending them off with good wishes here we go ready ready 2 good luck good
037experiences happy people um thank you for all your contributions uh to wildwood and stay in touch tell us how you're doing yeah you have my email yeah that's right there we go we'd like to hear wildwood we have wildwood families and students all around the world okay okay i think we have one more presenter a poem right yes we do and uh so this is carolyn carolyn works here at wildwood and she came to us and said i wanna i wanna read a poem so carolyn we're going to invite you here how are you so nice to see you hi friends good morning wildwood thank you for everybody thank you being brave enough to join us here and recycle for us and oh sorry happy black history month to everyone and i'm so inspired by
038all the students that came before me yes and i would like to read a poem by maya angelou called and still i rise beautiful so we're going to remove ourselves carolyn and and let you present to the whole community you may write me down in history with your bitter twisted lies you may trod me in the very dirt but still like dust i'll rise does my sassiness upset you why are you beset with gloom cause i walk like i got oil wells pumping in my living room just like moons and like suns with the certainty of tides just like hope springing high still i'll rise did you want to see me broken bowed head and lowered eyes shoulders falling down like teardrops weakened by my soulful cries does my heartiness offend you don't you take
039it awful hard cause i laugh hahaha like i've got gold mines digging in my own backyard you may shoot me with your words you may cut me with your eyes you may kill me with your hatefulness but still like air i'll rise out of the hut of history shame i rise up from a past thus rooted in pain i rise i'm a black ocean leaping in wide welling and swelling i bear in the tide leaving behind nights of terror and fear i rise into a daybreak that's wondrously clear i rise bringing in the gifts that my ancestors gave i am the dream and the hope of the slave i rise i rise i rise thank you wildwood thank you carolyn oh i love your reading of that that is one of my favorite poems and
040you really made it just come alive thank you thank you thank you so much carolyn that was beautiful thank you those words will stay with us still i rise thank you have a good day thank you so much and carolyn picked out that poem alison and he didn't realize that the closing song by matali was coming right up uh incorporates some of the words of that of the poem into the song oh i mean it's just amazing how connected this has all been for me from phyllis wheatley to amanda gorman to carolyn holmes reading of maya angelou i mean it's just been such a wonderful experience of celebrating the written word so here we go yes that's true and it's really just kicking off okay but we'll talk more about that in a minute but
041let's welcome back hello what i'm trying to do i follow these kids but it was really great to see them uh i i knew many of those faces um you all look a little bit older your head got a little bit bigger you know uh but it was so cool to see you know how how much a year for some of you it feels like two years worth that i've seen because i haven't been it was really refreshing to see that and see the language that you are developing and how you're interpreting um black history um you know y'all are in good hands you think the world is in good hands yeah um i guess i can just introduce this or is yeah yeah so this is we're closing out the assembly miss allison and
042i will come back on to launch the uh regan the african-american region day but this is you're bringing it you started us off and now you're bringing us all together so take it away so this song is um you know i've never done this song alone and i've never i've actually never performed this song so you all are the first time i usually don't i usually don't sing or play piano at the same time usually i have a band doing that so this um if we're talking about growth mindset and if we're talking about stepping outside of our comfort zone um well this morning and this right now this moment is me uh stepping into the unknown for you all you know because i love you all so much uh that i'm willing to do
043that it embarrass myself if that happens but um this song is a song that many of you may remember it um we did it a couple years ago at the black history month assembly we did it a couple years ago um the following year at a chorus concert and in it and it's inspired by the chorus um goes something like this and i i would love it if you all at home sing with me even though i can't hear y'all i can feel y'all and so it goes like the day it's on ah the day it's on its way couldn't wait no more hear it come ready or not let's try so it's the day it's the day is on its way it couldn't wait no more here it comes ready or not you know
044what what better lyrics for black history month right you know um and i think you all are learning about black history month you're learning about the importance of these things um but we also know that for black people a lot of the history we've learned and the reality of what black people still don't want to talk about it you know and and believe it or not there's still people who don't even want to talk about black history and and if we don't talk about black history well then we turn on the news and we're going to keep seeing these things that we keep seeing we're going to keep seeing the struggle we're going to keep having to revisit these conversations because these are the same conversations that i had when i was an elementary school
045student and a lot of these conversations are the same conversations that our parents had and our grandparents had and so we're not doing them any service if we're still having the same conversations because if we're having the same conversations that means the needs are the same and if the needs are the same that means we aren't doing enough to make this world the world we need to do so the day is on its way it couldn't wait no more here it comes ready or not and so that's us saying you know despite what history has said despite everything else and despite people maybe not wanting to talk about this or despite people having hate in their hearts or despite people um feeling a way about people who look like me and who look a lot
046of you who are on the stream right now the day is on its way equality is coming right and we've read that in a lot of your poems right if only we can see it if only we can feel it right uh or i'm getting those lyrics wrong but you know this is this is our world and so if you want to sing that one more time today it's on its way couldn't wait no more here it comes ready or not it's not in my range but it's in y'all's this is what i do for y'all i sing outside of my range for you all right so um a part of this is again the same poem that um miss holmes just read my angels i rise and i put that to music and another
047part is commons verse one of commons verses to the movie selma uh from the song glory and then the last verse is another maya angelou poem called equality and so if you know those you're more than welcome to to say them with me but if you don't you can just come in on the course and we're going to catch a vibe [Music] so you may shoot me with your words [Music] i'll rise here it goes [Music] here we go justice is just a position in us justice for all ain't specific enough one son died of spirit is revisiting us [Music] shots [Music] on no more here it goes [Music] and i will be free equality and i will be free you're the temple so compelling [Music] couldn't wait no more [Music] here [Music] here all
048right well thank you all so much for letting me be here and be a part of it um remember black history is is all year and so i really like to emphasize that for me when february first hit nothing changed for me because this is the history i always learn and i always make it a point and i feel like everybody needs to because black history is american history is world history and there's no way you could separate this and so learn what you need to learn for black history month it's more like a black history recharge it's just you're planting those seeds you yeah you should be learning about this so don't let me catch y'all in may and i'm and i'm giving y'all some black history books and you're saying we only do
049that no 365 and that goes for all history all these people this this lovely living in it you don't have to be black to care about black history it's like you don't have to be able to care about women's history because black history is everybody's history you know all of our history is everybody's history and it's the history we don't know is that we repeat thank you matali thank you so much and it is a recharge moment and thank you for those words thank you for putting up with my janky no singing he's demonstrating that growth mindset for everybody mentality thank you so much metalli is also going to be a guest reader in a fifth grade class and all of the sixth grade so thank you so much my family for joining us you
050are forever a part of the wildwood community as you know thank you thank you i love y'all i love you all once again hopefully in person yes definitely take care all right take care y'all ah so true this is a recharge moment for the uh read-in the african-american reading is a way to be recharged um learning about the literary traditions poetry how inspirational and as we sign off ms estes i can't not say happy birthday to you miss allison so let's shout it out to allison miss allison it's her birthday thank you celebration it's gonna be a good day but you know every day has to be a good day and i am so excited about the african-american reading i'm gonna do my best to just say hi to as many kids as i can
051today that's my birthday present to me all right there you go allison all right so this is it i think uh all the classroom teachers have their schedules and they've sent out the links to our guest readers we have guest readers from wildwood from the amherst school community from the umass fine college community from the greater western mass so uh we know at wildwood we know how to welcome people and i know students every year the readers say how where do we get these students they're so smart they are such good questions so let's let's get started shall we on your bro yes right and thank you everyone i really appreciate the birthday messages but please enjoy the readers that are coming in today this is such a wonderful tradition at wildwood this is our
052first virtual read-in there might be some glitches there might be some hang-ups but you know we are going to support each other through it and it's going to be a wonderful time to really connect to each other and learn more about our human family and our wild with family too all right so take a little break from the screen and then go back to your class all right everybody do a little stretches here we go happy african american region happy black history month take care everyone take care recharge