The following post was originally published on Betty Trummel’s classroom blog, which you can find at http://home.d47.org/hus/eatrummel/.

In keeping with our current theme in the Unit of Study and our story entitled “My Librarian is a Camel” we are learning more about how children around the world get books.  Today I spoke with the entire fourth grade about a local non-profit organization called A to Z Literacy Movement.  I have been involved with A to Z for about 5 years now, and our key mission is getting books into the hands of impoverished children in Zambia, Africa. (as well as other places and also here locally)  

Check out:  www.atozliteracy.org  for photos, video clips, and more information.  The students all wanted to DO something after hearing about children in Zambia and the work of A to Z Literacy Movement.  

We have decided to do several things:  

1) We’d like to collect gently used books to send to the students at two schools (lower level books, no “western” world themes, yes to nonfiction and picture books, and also to easy fiction).  

2) We’d like to collect change…all of the coins we can (or any money donation), to use toward shipping the books to Zambia and/or school supplies for the students.  

3)  Some children expressed an interest in collecting/donating school supplies, since children in some areas in Zambia rarely even have a pencil of their own.  Supplies most needed are pencils, larger erasers or pencil-top erasers, hand-held pencil sharpeners, and boxes of 12 colored pencils.  I will gather these items in my classroom, and they will be taken to Zambia in June.  

4)  Many students expressed an interest in creating their own books to share with students in Zambia.  I had shown the group several examples of books I self-published on Apple/Mac that I either wrote with the children I taught in Zambia or wrote with students in my class here at Husmann.  Go for it!  It would be fun to have more books written by our Husmann students!  

Here are a couple of the books I’ve done…

Here are a few photos that depict what it’s like in the areas where A to Z Literacy has worked in Zambia.