Teachers and parents set aside a special hour Tuesday morning, March 15 to celebrate the hard work that Gil-bert Elementary School students have put into writing their own small stories.

Each kindergarten and first-grade homeroom class worked together to create its own class storybook, often com-pilations of each student’s likes or dreams, such as Ms. Morgan’s kindergarten story “Our Favorite Toys.” Students in second grade or above created their own individual stories.

The stories were published in shiny hardback books as part of the Student Treasures Project, a nationwide ef-fort to encourage young students to embrace a hands-on experience in writing and reading their own creations.

To celebrate the newly-published books, Gilbert Elementary hosted an “authors’ tea” hour Tuesday morning during which visiting parents proudly watched their children read their individual creations and everyone enjoyed a brief snack.

“It’s a lot of work, but the payoff is really good,” said Karen Neal, Gilbert Elementary academic coach. She notes that the entire process of student writing and editing as well as the long wait to be published means that “it’s a tedious project to make the book.” This is the first time in four years that the school has participated in the Student Treasures Project, and Neal is eager to see it happen again next year.

Student story subjects ranged from individual interests to literary aspirations and everywhere in between. Logan Brooks of Mr. Campbell’s fifth-grade class wrote about what Easter meant to his family, while Valerie Hanes of Ms. Eidem’s third-grade class announced that her story, “The Chronicles of Cluck Cluck Chick,” was “dedicated to farmers everywhere.”

“They all did a great job,” said fifth-grade teacher Mrs. Robertson proudly. “They edited themselves. It wasn’t done with any help.”