I Love to Read Month activities culminated for Meadowlark Elementary students on Monday afternoon, March 4, during a school assembly when winners for the Accelerated Reader reading challenge were announced for each grade.

School Librarian, Mrs. Kelsey Harry reported that during the month of February, Meadowlark students attempted and passed 512 Accelerated Reader (AR) tests. Of that total, 13 tests were conquered by kindergarteners, 220 by first graders, 140 by second graders, 62 by third graders, 39 by fourth graders, 27 by fifth graders, and 11 by sixth graders.

Each time a student earned a 90% or higher on an AR test attempt, that student's name went into a bin for the chance to win a grand prize. In the drawing process, the following students emerged as winners:

Kindergarten: Claire Buck

Grade 1: Kolt Rutledge

Grade 2: Addilyn Zelmer

Grade 3: Blake Miller

Grade 4: Gus Buck

Grade 5: Neva Lowe

Grade 6: Hannah Schoen

These lucky students each received a Kindle Fire, a generous gift made possible by the Montana Masonic Foundation and Chinook's Masonic Lodge #50 who donated the prizes. A cross between a smart phone and a laptop, a Kindle Fire is an electronic media tablet made by Amazon that uses an android platform. It can be used for reading books, playing games, and tapping into Amazon's collection of Web services.

Representing Chinook's Masonic Lodge #50, Larry Surber, Chad Surber, and Jack DePriest took turns presenting the Kindles as Ben Hall announced each winner. This is the second year that the Chinook Lodge has donated the prizes.

"The purpose of the Kindles for Books program is to motivate kids to read and to develop skills that they will use for the rest of their lives," Larry Surber, Masonic Master of the Lodge, said.

Surber went on to explain that although across the United States, many local Lodges support the Charitable Foundation of the Grand Lodge's Masonic Bikes for Books program to encourage students to read, in Chinook, because bikes are given by other businesses for other purposes, Lodge #50 chose the Kindles.

For at least five years, Scott and Heather DePriest, owners of American Garage, have given bikes every May on the last day of school to any Meadowlark Elementary School students who have maintained perfect attendance without any behavioral issues.

Meadowlark School uses Accelerated Reader (AR), which is a computer-based program, to encourage students to read independently, at their own level and pace, and to monitor their reading practice and progress. After reading a book, students take short quizzes online to check if they've understood the author's work. Teachers use these quizzes, which are often referred to as "AR tests," to track each student's progress and to set appropriate goals for each reader. Although AR is not specifically designed for children with learning and attention issues, teachers can use the program to help guide struggling readers to books they can read successfully.

The premise behind AR-a program that does not teach reading skills and strategies-is that young people enjoy reading more when they can select their own books. The AR program has more than 150,000 titles to choose from on its BookFinder list.

Although Meadowlark students read all month, during the final week of February, they participated in themed days with dress-up and activities. Monday, February 25, was Read My Shirt day, and students wore shirts with some kind of school appropriate writing on them. Sports slogans such as "This Is My House" or inspirational sayings like "Believe in Yourself" were popular.

Tuesday's theme was Shine a Light on Reading, so students brought flashlights to school and read in the dark. And anyone attending the school on Wednesday would have observed students who were Crazy about Reading, either wearing crazy socks or sporting crazy hair styles. For Thursday, students dressed as their favorite book characters, and on Friday, March 1, in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday, students wore red and white stripes or dressed as their favorite Dr. Seuss character.

Mrs. Paulsen's fifth graders took advantage of the dress-up activities to apply math principles. The group collected data on the participation from each class and recorded it in a table. From their data, they will calculate the mean, median, and mode; create pie charts; and compute percentages. "It was fun," fifth grader Owen Davies said. "The best day was Crazy Hair Day."

Word around campus was that Mrs. Haas, who works as an aide at the elementary school, featured the craziest hair. She teased it until it had huge, disheveled volume. And the craziest socks were those worn by Principal Jon Martin, whose Star Trek themed socks featured Spock's ears.

Mr. Martin also joined with his sixth grade reading group on Thursday's favorite book character day to create a scene from The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, using the school's green screen technology. Martin posed as Haymitch, while Dentin DePriest was Peeta Mellark and both Ashlyn Jensen and Rilee Molyneaux dressed as Katniss Everdeen, the book's heroine from District 12.

The students created the scene with the help of a process called "chroma key," also referred to as "green screen" due to the backdrop's typical vivid green color. Chroma keying requires hardware that can recognize and manipulate multiple layers defined by color while recorded material can be changed in post- production with video- or photo-editing software. Chroma keying isn't just for superimposing subjects onto virtual backgrounds; it works with objects, too. Through the magic of video effects and technology, students can use the technology to perform elaborate animation and to create special effects.

Monday's assembly also featured presentations from fourth graders who had studied Black History Month as a way to honor the contributions of African Americans to United States History. The celebration of Black History Month began as "Negro History Week," which was created in 1926 by Carter G. Woodson, a noted African American historian, scholar, educator, and publisher. It became a month-long celebration in 1976 when the month of February was chosen to coincide with the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and Abraham Lincoln.

Seven students from the classrooms of fourth grade teachers, Mrs. Emily Scofield and Ms. Shandel Fouts, shared their research on those African Americans that they regarded as making significant contributions to U.S. History:

Jane Bolin Lori Mord

Rosa Parks Kiley Huravitch

Althea Gibson Brooklyn Terry

Stevie Wonder A. Kelly

Benjamin Banneker Sidney Liddle

Maya Angelou Kamry Gustitus

Mae Jemison Rylee Chafin

The assembly ended with an audio/video news cast created by Mrs. Janelle Deanon's sixth graders. The broadcast was meant to deliver a reminder message about indoor recess expectations and the importance of being respectful of common equipment and games. Sami Malsam and Addison Olsen were the anchors for the news program, which was well-received by the students gathered.