Recently, several Emmett Rotarians had the privilege of visiting with and presenting a dictionary and a Rotary color book to all third-grade students in the Gem County school district. It was so cool seeing the student’s faces light up with bright smiles, sparkling eyes, and excitement when we handed them their books and told them they are theirs to keep, and that they may take them home.
Recently, several Emmett Rotarians had the privilege of visiting with and presenting a dictionary and a Rotary color book to all third-grade students in the Gem County school district. It was so cool seeing the student’s faces light up with bright smiles, sparkling eyes, and excitement when we handed them their books and told them they are theirs to keep, and that they may take them home. After giving the students their dictionary, we instruct them to write their name on the appropriate page, making it theirs. Then we explain a little bit about the dictionary, pointing out the table of contents page to use to find things quickly, and about all the reference material it contains. The dictionaries are newly published every year with the most up-to-date information possible. We then ask them if they know what the longest word in the dictionary is, tell them the page it is on, and ask them if they can pronounce it. They try but give up quickly.
If you are wondering why third graders were chosen as the recipients of the dictionaries the reason is can be found in The Dictionary Project’s mission statement on their website: “The goal of this program is to assist all students in becoming good writers, active readers, creative thinkers, and resourceful learners by providing them with their own personal dictionary. The dictionaries are a gift to each student to use at school and at home for years to come. Educators see third grade as the dividing line between learning to read and reading to learn, so we encourage our sponsors to give dictionaries each year to children in the third grade.” For more information, go to: https://www.dictionaryproject.org/.
The Emmett Rotary Club started sponsoring dictionaries from The Dictionary Project in 2008 and since then has given out 4008 dictionaries, this year the club passed out 216 dictionaries.
If you would like to learn more about Rotary you are welcome to attend our meetings, which are held on Thursdays at noon at Idaho Pizza on Hwy 52. For more information go to our website https://www.emmettrotary.org/, like our Facebook page Rotary Club of Emmett, or call John Buck @ 208-369-1785. Come, join us, and make some new friends!