Read Around the World with the Omaha Zoo

In December my principal, Mrs. Dominy, got a letter in the mail from the Omaha Henry Doorly Zoo's Education Department about an upcoming reading contest to win a free trip to the zoo for the whole school. How fun would that be, right?!  Right away Mrs. Dominy and I were on board!  We asked the students at Seward Elementary to keep track of every book they read and to bring their reading sheet to the library.  The contest started on December 16, 2013 and ended February 28, 2014.  That is a long time to keep track of reading!  And our students did an amazing job!

In the cafeteria we have a huge brick wall that rarely is used for displays.  I took this as an opportunity to display our reading achievements.  Each class chose a country and I printed off the country's flag with the teacher's name on the side, then the student paw prints would line underneath it.  For every twenty books the student read, they got to write their name on a paw print. Just look at all those paw prints!

Every couple weeks we tried to have incentives for the class that had the most sheets turned in or the class that improved the most since the start of the competition.  The incentives included cupcakes made by our amazing library para (and also cupcake baker), an extra recess, participation in a library display, and finally a dance party.

This is what 15 pounds of reading sheets looks like!

Unfortunately, we didn't win the competition.  Congratulations goes to Randolph Elementary in Randolph, Nebraska for winning the free trip. They read an average of 99 books per students.  But, we did rank fourth place out of fifty schools!!  Our school read a total of 27,371 books, that is an average of 55 books per student.  I think that is pretty impressive.  Even though we didn't win, the Omaha Zoo did remind us of some free resources that they offer, that you may find useful, too.  Here is more information about their Distance Learning.

Mrs. Dominy and I couldn't resist the urge to do something to celebrate.  After we exchanged many ideas we decided to end of our crazy Dr. Seuss celebration week with a dance party.  Who doesn't like to move it, move it?  Or...how can you NOT feel HAPPY about reading so many good books!!??