This year’s theme for Black History Month at Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., School #9 is Black Panther! Each classroom is encouraged to participate in a challenge – present at the school assembly, create a display, or participate in buddy reading – all around a theme related to the Black Panther movie (innovation, technology, science, arts, superheroes, women’s empowerment, giving back to the community, making a difference, and African American culture).

So, in the library, we have been busy gathering and displaying hundreds of black history picture books and biographies for classrooms to choose from for their buddy reading. K-2 classrooms were paired up with intermediate classrooms for buddy reading. Then during library class, the older students selected a few picture books they might like to read to younger children and practiced reading them to a classmate.

The buddy reading was very successful and accomplished so much! The older students read for fluency and comprehension and learned a little bit about what it feels like to be the teacher. The younger students were exposed to great people, concepts  and events in black history.