OSCARs

I attended/was a part of the most terrific event at school on Friday.  The language arts teacher on our 7A team put together an OSCAR production for everyone to be a part of!

Mrs. Young spends *weeks* working with the students. . .from what I understand, first they nominate (in class) characters, books, and authors for different categories like best series, best male character, best animal character, best villain, etc.

She then narrows all the nominations down to three in each category and at some point all the students vote on one from each category (see example above from the program). 

Mrs. Young at the OSCARs

All the students either pick or are assigned a character to dress up as. . .they are nominees (like Thomas, who was President Snow) or presenters. . .Peter Pan and his friends introduced these nominees.

 Here is a picture of President Snow before he left the school.  Somehow on the bus ride to our venue, he lost his mustache.  My stage pictures aren't that great because I was sorta backstage helping with the line-up and sorta trying to enjoy the event as a parent :)  Here are the presenters and nominees onstage:

The winners are a surprise until the red envelope is opened, just like at the "real" Oscars. . .

Each nominee writes an acceptance speech and the winners then give a speech at the event. . .I think Thomas had already given his speech when this picture was snapped.

Here he is with one of his good friends after the ceremony with his OSCAR trophy :)  Mrs. Young thought of everything.

Apparently this is the first year they've taken the show off-campus because the program has grown so much that our multi-purpose room at school is now too small.  I tried to get a good shot of the audience. . .there were well over 400 people there:

The presenters are on stage -- they even coordinated their outfits! -- watching a clip of something. . .Mrs. Young did such a terrific job of putting together clips, music, readings, entertainment acts. . .everything!  She even wrote the entire script.  Amazing.  There was standing room only. . .there were probably 100 students back stage (in addition to the audience which was made up of the other 7th grade team, all the sixth graders, and the entire middle section are parents) and as the characters finished with their time on stage they filled in around the edges of the room to watch the show.  Tom had an out-of-town meeting that morning but made it back in time for the show too.

 Sherlock Holmes was by far one of my favorite.  He's a great kid and loves acting so he had the most "punch" to his presentation. 
Here is a student so dedicated to her character that she DYED HER HAIR (she's a blond)!

While we were at the show, a team of moms were setting up the "after party" for our students in the school library.

The food was simple but the parents presented it extraordinarily.  They made us all feel so special!











Here is President Snow, looking more and more like Thomas by the minute (except I've never seen him in a tie -- ha!):

Thomas and I had a picture taken together before we left the school that morning (I was the only teacher that really "dressed up" but it was something that I thought would be fun to do):

The student who took this picture asked why Thomas wasn't smiling. . .he said it was because President Snow doesn't smile

I actually hadn't put that dress on for 10+ years before that morning. . .it was a tad big but fun to do. . .it is/was a floor-length bridesmaids dress from my stepbrother's wedding!  The earrings were from my junior prom!!!!  Yes, my husband asked why I had even kept these things. . .came in handy, didn't it?!?

Oh!  And one last thing I will leave here (besides the dozens of pictures I got of my students. . .there were some really awesome costumes but I don't like putting too many on the internet obviously). . .Mrs. Young also had the students make OSCAR banners for outside the library door -- these were impressive too!

Well. . .that was one of the neatest things I've been a part of and can't wait to do it again next year!  Tomorrow (Monday) is the last day of school so this was a great way to end.  When the ceremony was originally scheduled months and months ago we thought Wednesday was going to be our last day but two weeks ago the school board decided that the students (NOT the teachers) should get out two days early so tomorrow is "it" for them.  I have two days of in-service, a teacher workday, and then a 10:00 day (Friday) to look forward to.  Grades were due last Thursday evening (Thomas and I were at school until 9:30 p.m. so I could finish them up!) and then all this Friday. . .this week is all about saying good-bye, packing up (hopefully for another year next year -- still don't have that in writing), and looking forward to beginning our summer break sometime after 10 a.m. on Friday. 
Although this does seem like 5 months ago. . .in some ways the time flew too.  What a privilege, to have been able to be back in the classroom!

~ Jenni