A grade 4 student browsing at the Book Fair

Each November during the week of parent-teacher interviews, IHMS holds its annual Scholastic Book Fair. Of course, there are plenty of stores in Winnipeg where students can purchase books and accessories, but the Scholastic Book Fair makes the process easy and convenient because they bring the books to us!

In addition to making it convenient for students to acquire cool books, it’s also an opportunity for the school to raise some extra money. The book fair is run on a percentage of profit basis - the more it brings in, the more money the school has to spend. For each of the last few years, the book fair has raised approximately $2500 for the school. Out of this money, each teacher is allotted $100 towards the purchase books for their classroom, while the rest is used to purchase new Scholastic books for the library.

More grade 4 student browsing at the Book Fair

The book fair was set up in the front foyer of the school during the week of Parent-Teacher interviews. The week of Parent-Teacher interviews was selected as an ideal time for the Book Fair because most parents were already in the school at some point during the week to visit with their child’s teacher. Parents were able to browse with their children, learn what type of books interested them, and then pay for them! The theme for this year's Scholastic Book Fair was: “Galaxy of Books”

The book fair ran from Tuesday, November 24th to Thursday, November 26th. Since there were no classes on Thursday because of parent-teacher interviews, most of the purchases on Thursday were made by the visiting parents.

Note: During these times, students had to have a parent with them to purchase books.

A few days before the book fair was set up, every student was given a “Preview” flyer showing a few of the books that would be available for sale. In addition to these "sneak peeks", the flyer also contained something else that was very important! Inside the flyer, there was a ballot that could be filled out and entered for a prize draw for $50 worth of free books - $25 for the winning student and $25 for that student's class. This year’s winner of the “Family Event Door Prize” draw was Jenny K., who won $25 worth of books for herself, and $25 worth of book for the grade 2 class. Congratulations, Jenny!

Jenny K. with some of the prizes she won at the Book Fair

In addition to the Family Event Door Prize, 10 other smaller prizes were also available during the book fair. Every grade was eligible for at least one prize, and these prizes were based on various contests given by the classroom teachers. Each of the following students received a coupon for $6.00 off any purchase at the book fair:

• Sadochok: Daelan E. • Kindergarten: Brooke B. • Grade 1: Kateland A. • Grade 2: Danielle E. • Grade 3: Mikey M. • Grade 4: Nykola S. • Grade 5: Michael K. • Grade 6: Jonathon D. • Grade 7: Nicholas D. • Grade 8: Mitzi G.

In order to give everyone an opportunity to view the display, a schedule was set up for each grade to do some browsing. “Viewing only” was allowed on Tuesday afternoon, while purchases were accepted later that day (after 3:00 p.m.) when the book fair officially opened.

Students extremely excited about the Book Fair

Since the book fair was organized with the needs of the students in mind, there was a wide range of titles available, ranging from pre-school to teenager. There were also a lot of accessories for sale, such as colourful pencils, pens, erasers, markers, and calculators. There was even a small selection of activity kits for the students to buy.

Grade 4 and 8 students previewing the Book Fair on Wednesday afternoon

The book fair was organized by Mrs. Prescott (the school’s librarian). In addition, a number of parent volunteers helped out, including the following:

The Book Fair was organized by Mrs. Prescott, the school’s librarian

Thank you to everyone who played a part in making the Scholastic Book Fair such a great success.

Scholastic is one of the leading publishers and distributors of children's books and educational materials in Canada.