Back to School Book Fair

We are so excited to have the book fair here this week! There is a wonderful selection from the Scholastic Book Fair company this time. Students are coming in all day long searching for just the right book. Parents are bringing their little ones in to purchase something fun to read at home.

The students enjoyed watching the author video prior to the book fair and were exclaiming in joy when they saw their favorite author or book series was going to be represented at this week's book fair.

Be sure to come to our Family Night on Thursday evening from 4:30-6:30. If you would like to order from our online book fair, you can go to this link.

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!

Library Week 2014

Library Week occurred during testing time at my school, so I didn't feel like we could make a loud celebration of libraries. I did put up this (plain and boring) bulletin board for students to participate by writing book quotes on it:

It turned out to be quite a hit with teachers and students who found quotes from their favorite books to write on the Book Graffiti Wall! Here are some of the quotes that were written:

This bulletin board turned out to be so popular, I will most likely put one up like it again next year. Thank you teachers and students for writing your favorite quotes on the wall!

Some teachers had their students make cards for me and the preschool teachers donated a bunch of books to the library in my name! Thank you!!

World Record!!!

Right before our state tests, our 4th and 5th graders joined middle school and high school students in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record for hula hoop passing.

We had over 550 students who participated. The kids had an awesome time and everyone participated correctly: holding hands the ENTIRE time!

We will find out the final results in a few weeks or so. We are so proud of how our students participated!

Going to the Capitol

Oklahoma State Capitol Building

Central Oak teachers on the bus

On March 31, 2014, around 25,000 teachers descended upon the capitol grounds to show support for our legislators who are working toward better education in the State of Oklahoma. We were also there to represent our students, future teachers, and ourselves. Teacher pay and spending on students in Oklahoma are nearly last in the ranking for the United States. I think Oklahoma can do better than that!

My school superintendent made it very easy for the teachers in our district to attend. He closed schools for a professional day and was able to procure buses to deliver us to the capitol and pick us up again.

It was so exciting to see so many educators standing up for our students and each other in solidarity for better funding for schools! There were some great signs and shirts as seen in my pictures.

I couldn't believe how many people were there. I saw my old Superintendent at Glencoe Schools and his wife. I shook his hand and congratulated him on yet another state championship in basketball. Here are some pictures of the inspirational crowd.

Me in front of the capitol building

It was difficult to hear some of the speakers at the rally, but I was excited that a couple of students were there and spoke on behalf of education in Oklahoma. I hope that the legislators heard us and will do something about the sad state of affairs in Oklahoma education. I'm hopeful!

The only thing that made my experience less than special was the socializing and loud talking done by a group of teachers and their administrators who were standing near me. Even after giving them my extra-special disappointed teacher look, they continued. Too bad they weren't there for the same reason I was there. They even had their school shirts on, identifying themselves! I won't say the town's name, but I was ashamed of them. I would write a letter to their superintendent, but he was one of the ones participating in the shameful behavior.

Questions for a Soldier

My niece, Kelsea, is an Army Lieutenant serving our country in Afghanistan.

She asked all of her family members to write letters to her. Of course, I couldn't stop at that! I invited all the teachers in my school district to have students write letters to her and make cards for the soldiers who go through her medic station there in Afghanistan.

Two fifth grade classes, led by Ms. Bordine and Mrs. Wells, wrote well-thought-out letters with probing questions. Kelsea wouldn't have time to respond to the letters by the time school is out, so I asked her if she would be willing to Skype with the classes and answer some of their questions. She agreed and we set up a time. I read through each of the letters the students wrote and chose about 20 questions for Kelsea to answer, including the students' names with the questions. I sent the questions to her ahead of time so she would be prepared with answers.   Boy, were those kids excited to hear their names from far across the world! It was very late for her - nearly 11:00 PM for her, and just after lunch for the fifth graders. The teachers even gave up part of their lunch time to escort their classes to the library for the big event!

We had a few technical difficulties at first, but soon we were talking face to face with my fabulous niece! She answered questions, showed us her quarters, her snack drawer (completely full of goodies sent from home), the outside of the buildings where she works, and most importantly, her gun! It was exciting for us to see her and realize that she was waaaaay across the ocean in a war zone! We found out that her favorite subject in school was most likely science and that she didn't like math. She has to carry her gun with her all the time. She works in the same room in which she sleeps. The soldiers who are injured in the field are only at her workplace for around 2 hours where they are stabilized so that they can be moved to a hospital. She will return to the USA sometime next fall and then be trained to be a MEDEVAC helicopter pilot! I got a little teary-eyed when she said that she missed her family very much - WE MISS YOU TOO, KELSEA!

Here are a couple of pictures from the Skype visit. I loved using Skype and hope to use it again in the future. After all, a bunch of second graders made cards for some of the soldiers Kelsea and her troops treat! ;)

 

A Snapshot of My Reading Life

This is Week 3 of the World Read Aloud Day Blogging Challenge. We are to post a picture that gives readers a glimpse into our reading lives and share a short narrative explaining why the picture is meaningful. Honestly, the picture isn't all that meaningful, but the books certainly are!

Here I am in my school's library with a display of books that have, in one way or another, shaped my life. Some of them are by favorite authors, some are books that helped me see another's point of view, some are from my childhood, and some are books I have come to love just recently.

Someone once said that every book you read helps to shape the person you become. I truly believe that. I have tried to instill this type of "book love" to all my students (and other teachers and friends) for the 23 years that I have been a teacher and librarian. I really wanted to take a picture of me completely buried by books. I didn't do that, though, because I didn't want to re-shelve all those books!

Please share your favorite book or books with me in the comments below!

Read Across America DEARathon

It has begun! The COE Library is hosting a Read Across America DEARathon this week. Every 10 minutes during the school day, a student is coming in for their own personal DEAR time! This is our third reader this morning! If you are in the area and would like to join in, please come by! A big thank you to teachers for allowing their students to miss a few minutes of the wonderful lessons they have prepared for this week! READ FOR YOUR LIFE!

Encyclopedia Inspiration

When I was a young girl, my parents purchased a set of encyclopedias one at a time from the grocery store when we made our weekly shopping trip. It was the Golden Book Encylopedia set:

This set is on sale on ebay today for about $50! I loved reading those things! They inspired me to want to learn about all different kinds of things, especially famous people. Mrs. Hall's second graders came in this afternoon for an impromptu lesson about encyclopedias, and they even went so far as to check to see if the sets were in order - what a great lesson! Thanks so much, Mrs. Hall and students!

In middle school, I read all the biographies that the school library had on the shelves. Many of our fifth graders have become interested in biographies in the "Who is/was..." series. I'm so glad to see them following in my footsteps! Here is a picture of a couple of books from that series:

Have a wonderful weekend, and happy reading!

Ground Hog Day Prognostications

Some students from Central Oak listened to stories about Ground Hogs and made their own predictions as to whether Oklahoma would have an early spring, or have six more weeks of winter. They learned about real ground hogs and about Punxatawney Phil from Pennsylvania. Here are their predictions:

More Flat Stanley Pictures!

Here are some more little ones excited to hear how Flat Stanley enjoyed his travels! Thank you to everyone who helped our second graders learn about different places, writing letters, and mapping skills.