By Kaiden, Seventh Grade

This year, Swan River School participated in Read for the Record. Read for the Record, by Jumpstart, is aiming to make books more accessible to children, and increase awareness of the importance of early literacy. So far, it has gained two million participants. Every year, Jumpstart, the people behind Read for the Record, chooses a new book for every participant to read. Every school participating in Read for the Record either reads to the school, or the students themselves read the book.

This is a snippet of an interview with the leader of Read for the Record at Swan River School, Mr. Bunker, who is also the principal at Swan River School. He says: “Read for the Record is a nation-wide event. Every year, they select a book, usually a children's book, and they are trying to find out how many people have read that book, or heard it read, on that day. They are trying to collect that data to break the record every year to be the most read book in one day.”

Read for the Record takes place at the beginning of October. Swan River School is among the two million participating schools, and Mr. Bunker reads to every student in the school present on that day. Mr. Bunker went to each and every classroom, and read to them Evelyn Del Rey is Moving Away, by Meg Medina. Mr. Bunker read to an estimated total of 179 kids, assuming everyone was present that day.

This year, for the 16th year in a row Mr. Gaiser, the Swan River School P.E. and outdoor education teacher, hosted the annual campfire cook off. With every middle school teacher and student participating, we had a fabulous time with lots of competition. The competition was hosted in September for three days going from 9/30/2020-10/2/2020.

Outdoor Education was created for many reasons. Survival skills are very important, especially in a place like Montana. The outdoor ed cookoff gives the kids at Swan River School life lessons, and it is super fun for everyone.

The sixth grade winners made baked potatoes, pumpkin spice scones, antelope stir fry, and kebabs. Fish tacos, homemade guacamole, homemade huckleberry lemonade, and cobbler were what the seventh grade winners made. The 8th grade winners, and the hardest class to judge, made surf and turf (a London broil steak and shrimp), brussel sprouts, potatoes, a pineapple upside down cake, with huckleberry and blueberry lemonade.

There were three classes, twelve fire pits, and a lot of competition. We are excited for next year.

Fire safety day is a great day. The difference between this year's fire safety and other years is, usually the students of Swan River School can go up to the emergency vehicle and learn about it, but this year because of COVID-19 they didn't get the chance. Instead of going up to them, they just had to stay behind a fence and learn about them.

Even though it did disappoint some students and teachers, they still appreciated the fact that the emergency responders took the time out of their day to come and teach the students. The students and teachers of Swan River School love when fire safety day happens because it builds a connection between the school local fire department. Swan River School also likes when fire safety day happens because kids get to learn about fire and safety from some local heroes.