Reading isn’t something you typically think of being a group activity.  But in Canyons, we are building communities of readers with activities like  the annual Book Blitz and Book Blitz Jr. contests — and it’s a community that anyone can join! Book Blitz is a Jeopardy-style competition where student teams are challenged to answer questions about the characters and plots of pre-selected books. I had the pleasure of observing the District-level contest this year and was so impressed by the students’ grasp of the smallest details from the books they read. Keep in mind, many middle school students read all 20 required books and a good number of elementary students read all 12 of their required books. Congratulations to all who took up the reading challenge, and kudos to this year’s winners:

Individual Middle School Winner: Mary Grant, Indian Hills Middle 
Winning Middle School Team: Draper Park Middle’s “Reading by Dusk” team: Anna Stephens, Alina Vannlord, Yulia Brattos, and Maya Halvorsen.
Winning Elementary School Team: The Sunrise Elementary “Word Ninjas:” Liam Sharkey, Thomas McCoy, Rossteen Esfavjani, Marcus Liu, and Van Hewitt.