Earlier this year, Mrs. Karen Engrenn, Whiting School Media Specialist, won a $10,000 library grant from the Ocean First Foundation for a program called Book Walk. 

Now that the spring has arrived, this program is in full swing.  Students pick up an audiobook, pedometer and pedometer belt on their way to lunch.  Then, when they go out for recess, they can walk and listen to a book.  If it rains, they walk indoors in the hallways.

The audiobooks are actually small mp3 audio file players that contain recordings of a single book. The students wear them around their necks on a lanyard and listen through earbuds or headphones. They can control the volume and have play, pause and rewind options.

Each day that they bookwalk, the students record the amount of steps they walked in a journal and then they discuss what they are reading with each other. When they finish a book, they get a pin. On Wednesdays, students walk with their Book Walk Buddies, a group of seniors from the Pines at Keswick. 

Michelle P. and Aimee M. both really like the program, they said, because you get a lot of exercise and you can do something while you listen to a book. Michelle has already logged about 5,300 steps.

There are currently 48 students in grades 4 & 5 involved in Book Walking and Mrs. Engrenn has been trying it out on grades 2 & 3. She said she would definitely add grade 3 next year.