CONWAY — The National Education Association designated March 2 as Read Across America Day. But Conway Grammar School didn’t want to limit celebrations to just one day.

The rural school serving students in kindergarten through sixth grade decided to hold festivities all week long to pay homage to literature. Students enjoyed a storywalk based on Peter Reynolds’ book “Our Table,” read-alouds at lunch, a door-decorating competition and a gymnasium obstacle course inspired by Greenfield resident Astrid Sheckels’ “Hector Fox” series. Sheckels was scheduled to visit Conway Grammar School on Thursday but had to postpone due to illness.

Still, kindergarten teacher Jeremy Brunaccioni said this unexpected change in plans did nothing to dampen students’ spirits.

“It’s been fun to see the kids get so enthusiastic,” he said Thursday. “It’s important because you want to develop that love of reading.”

Physical education teacher Christopher Williams assembled an elaborate obstacle course in the gymnasium incorporating locations in the “Hector Fox” books. McKenzie Robinson’s third grade students were in the gym at around 11 a.m., having looked forward to navigating the course all week.

“They were thrilled,” Robinson said. “I mean, they love PE anyway, but [it’s] just something different and it’s just a special event for them. They couldn’t wait.”

Brenna Warnick, the school’s intervention teacher, guided students in crafting bookmarks. She said students would make 180 bookmarks to be donated to area senior centers and hospitals. Warnick was in Jennifer Wheeler’s first grade classroom shortly after 11 a.m. on Thursday to show students how to make a bookmark and attach a tassel.

Student Mattox Phillips wrote on a bookmark that he loves his mom. Lucas Potter asked if he had to write on his bookmark, or if it was all right to only color on it.

“Anything you want,” classmate William Holdsworth-Clark assured him.

“They connect really quickly to characters doing kind things for others. They really connect quickly to how they can do that in their own lives,” Wheeler explained. “So those kinds of books really help us help them figure out how to be people in society, how to be people who are contributors to society, how to be kind citizens.

“We’re a school that loves books and loves making literacy connections, but this week it seems a little bit deeper. They love it,” she added. “It’s like reading is popping up in unexpected places for them now, like in the lunch room, like having the storywalk posted in the hallway.”

Brunaccioni said Darius Modestow, superintendent of the Frontier Regional and Union 38 school districts, was expected to stop by with other administrators to judge the door-decorating competition. Each classroom door was bedazzled in a way inspired by literacy.

Reach Domenic Poli at: dpoli@recorder.com or 413-930-4120.

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