Lower School Hosts Book and Bot Parade

First and second grade students hosted the Book and Bot Parade today for the third year. In preparation for the big parade today, students read Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet with Librarian Ruth Malwitz in library class and also learned about the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City. The students designed floats using robots in coding class with Lower School and Grade 5 Coding Teacher Rachel Kaplan to look like book characters. They set up a parade scene using cardboard, construction paper, and markers to craft buildings, trees, taxis, and the road. The parade and inspiration for each float design was then shared with the rest of the Lower School.  

This year’s parade garnered extra attention from Melissa Sweet who sent the following letter to the first and second graders: 

Hello readers: 

Bravo to all Book and Bot builders. 

Your parade, the cityscape, and all the creative design decisions sound like an amazing event. Tony Sarg would have loved it! 

I’m so impressed at the scale and inventiveness of this project. I have never made a bot but I’d like to find out more. We are all kindred spirits, like Tony, in that we like to make things move. 

This past summer I took a course on paper engineering to attempt to make paper toys that move, and all sorts of cool origami and pop-up structures. 

If possible, please send me pictures of the parade so I can see the cityscape and bots perambulating down “Broadway.” Here’s to a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy the parade. 

All best wishes, 

Melissa