Help thy neighbor

After learning about the devastation Hurricane Ike caused in Galveston, Texas last month, A.G. Richardson Elementary students are doing their part to help the storm-stricken region.

Earlier this month, AGR teachers chose a book during the book fair for their students to read with the intent of doing something special for Make a Difference Day for Scott Elementary School located on Galveston Island on the Gulf Coast.

The storm pummeled the island with 12-foot storm surges and 110-mph winds, flooding and destroying homes and businesses in its path.

“It’s important for students to know what it feels like to do something for someone else,” said Candace Standley, Make a Difference Day committee co-chairwoman and AGR math specialist.

This year’s theme focuses on reading.

Teachers Jan Aylor and Eilene Smith’s fifth-grade students read, “The Magic Kitchen,” and plan to send a copy of it with a handmade book filled with their favorite recipes to the 43-year-old Texas school.

“We thought that sending something special to the students that they would learn a little bit about us,” Aylor said Thursday morning, standing inside her classroom.

AGR fifth-grader Pili Scott said he was proud to participate in this year’s project.

“It makes me feel good that I’m able to help somebody else out,” said the 11-year-old student.

In the third-grade hall, teacher Mary Beth Bopp’s class read, “Crazy Hair Day,” about a boy, who mixed up picture day with crazy hair day.

In the book, his classmates tease him before creating their own crazy hairstyles in an effort to make him feel better about his mistake.

“It’s important to help people,” said 8-year-old Ashley Egertson — sporting a lime green braid in her long locks and a “I show I care with my crazy hair” sticker on her shirt.

Third-grader Beth Scott, 8, had her own imaginative hairdo for the wacky hair day.

She pulled her blond tresses up and around a cup and used a rubber band to tie it up, creating her unique updo.

Bopp said the book helped her students learn some important life lessons.

“We show that we care about how other people feel and we want to help people fit in by doing this,” she said, wearing purplish highlights in her curly light brown hair.

Helping others
In the kindergarten wing, Mary DeJarnette read “Hooray for Reading Day,” to her students on Thursday.

The story is about a little girl named Jessica, who worries about reading out loud effortlessly and gets easily humiliated when she stumbles over her words in front of her peers.

After Jessica practices reading to her dog, Wiggles, she quickly gains the confidence she needs for her class’ reading day party.

As part of Make a Difference Day, DeJarnette requested that her students bring in used books over the next few days to mail to Scott Elementary School.

“When that big hurricane came in, the people lost all of their houses and things. The schools don’t have books so the children don’t have anything to read,” DeJarnette explained to her young students. “So we’re going to make a difference by sending them some books for their classrooms.”

In Alli Watson’s fifth-grade classroom, her students read, “Henry’s Freedom Box,” about a slave who mailed himself in a wooden crate to freedom.

The book inspired the class to create 5-by-5-inch squares with their own drawings and/or decorative symbols on them.

Each piece of fabric is being sewn together this week to make a colorful quilt as a gift for the students in Texas.

“I think it’s important because it shows what we feel about the book,” said 10-year-old Hannah Williams.

Watson praised her students for choosing the book and for completing the task that she assigned.

“It a wonderful project because the kids really got to the heart of the book and they are now sharing this with other children,” she said.

Rhonda Simmons can be reached at 825-0771 ext. 125 or .