Oklahoma Pioneer Woman

Our third graders have been studying Oklahoma history and geography lately. One of their teachers, Ms. Hicks, asked me if I would portray an Oklahoma Land Run woman for the third graders. I borrowed the Pioneer Tools trunk from the Oklahoma History Center, put together a simple costume, and read the materials accompanying the trunk prior to the program in order to come up with a good story for my character portrayal.

I decided to go with mixing up true stories of my grandmother, Myrtis, and her family (including my mom). I "set" the story about 30 years before my grandma's real birth and told a rambling story of how she and her husband, Don, and three children, Carol, Jimmy, and Janie, rode in a covered wagon in the Cherokee Land Run of 1889. I used all of the items in the Pioneer Tools trunk and told what they were used for. I also told the students that my family had ordered from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and that we were expecting our stove and plow to be delivered "any day now" by wagon from the nearest train station.

Lantern and washboard in hand!

The students were able to ask me questions while I was still in character and then when I took off my hat and came back to being Mrs. Moody. They asked really good questions about how we traveled, where we lived (in a dugout), how we cooked (over a fire until our stove got here - then with buffalo chips), and how much money things cost. They were pretty much grossed out by what buffalo chips contained!

I think they enjoyed the portrayal as much as I enjoyed doing it. Maybe this could be another "job" for my retirement!

If you are in Oklahoma, I highly recommend using the free materials from the Oklahoma History Center. Here is a link to their website!

Fiesta Book Fair!

Though I didn't take any pictures of kids at the book fair, I would say this one was one of our better book fairs. We outdid ourselves in selling books, and every kiddo that came to the fair bought a BOOK! We had the highest total sales of any book fair at Central Oak Elementary, and raised almost $200 in our All For Books donation buckets. We did that by having students vote for their favorite cat book character and put their change in the bucket designated to each cat. Pete the Cat was the favorite of the school, so he will be spending the summer with me!

Usually, I go on a fun vacation, but this summer I will be having two knee replacement surgeries. Pete and I will have some fun reading lots of books and watching movies this summer. I'll be sure to keep you updated on the blog! Here are the buckets and our most favorite cats!

Bawk! Bawk! Bawk! The Life Cycle of a Chicken

The second graders at Central Oak learned about life cycles during April this year. They raised some baby chickens from fertilized eggs that Ms. Burch received from a friend. The eggs stayed in the incubator until the babies finally hatched. Students were able to study all the cycles of a chicken's life through this real-life experience.

The classes checked out every single chicken-related book (fiction and nonfiction) from the library and located parts of nonfiction books to find out facts about chickens and raising chickens.

Their studies concluded with a real time virtual field trip to an egg farm in Illinois. The kids enjoyed watching how the egg farmers take care of the chickens, wash the eggs, and then deliver them. We were able to ask questions via the website as well. What a fun activity! We will definitely plan to do it again next year and I have included the link above so that others will know about it. Here are some pictures of the baby chickens and the bulletin boards of some second grade classes:

In addition to chickens, Ms. Burch has a few other class pets worth mentioning because they discussed their life cycles as well: frogs and a guinea pig named "Rockstar"!

This has been Ms. Burch's first year here at Central Oak and she has done a great job with her students. They will miss being in her class next year!

Bookmarkapalooza!

It's no secret that bookmarks are very expensive. That's one of the reasons why I enter every contest and talk to authors and illustrators on Twitter and Facebook! Authors and illustrators are very generous in sending free bookmarks and stickers to give to students in the library. I am so grateful for every one of them! Recently, I made "Twitter friends" with Ame Dyckman and Corey Schwartz. Both of them sent me gobs of stickers and bookmarks for my students. I also entered a contest on Twitter and won a bunch of bookmarks from @ScholasticTeacher! Woo hoo! My kids are now stocked up for quite a while!