NEOSHO RAPIDS — Students at Neosho Rapids Elementary School followed the Yellow Brick Road up and down their school’s halls Tuesday afternoon as they went to different “Wizard of Oz”-themed stations to celebrate Kansas Day and the 100th day of school.
Several stations were set up for the students, giving them the opportunity to make butter, play computer games, plant sunflowers, make a banner for troops overseas, exercise, make tornadoes and learn about aviation. Staff members were dressed like Oz characters, completing the theme.
The hallways of Neosho Rapids Elementary School were adorned with long pieces of yellow paper (the Yellow Brick Road) and the walls were decorated with more Oz themes such as the scarecrow, complete with 100 ears of corn (for the 100th day of school).
In the sixth-grade classroom, students made “Auntie Em’s Butter” from cream. Cream was put in baby food jars and students shook the cream until it turned into butter. Then they had a chance to taste the butter by putting it on homemade bread. Several students laughed as they shook the jar. A couple of others commented on how the butter tasted different — it was unsalted.
Karen Zoglman, who teaches kindergarten, dressed as the Cowardly Lion. She helped the students make lion heads to put on a large banner that will be sent to troops overseas.
“I don’t know exactly where it’s going,” Zoglman told students. “The troops will appreciate it.”
In Jodee Lee’s second-grade room, students were planting sunflower seeds in a milk carton they covered with construction paper and a cut-out of a sunflower. First-grader Katelyn Kuhens finished planting her sunflower and explained her favorite station of the day.
“The computer lab,” Kuhens said, adding that she printed out a picture of a turtle.
As she finished planting her seeds, Amber Bess, who is in fifth grade, said her favorite thing about Kansas is sunflowers.
Over in “Tornado Alley,” students learned a bit about tornadoes and then made their own tornadoes by shaking water bottles. Fifth-grader Taylor McAvory and sixth-grader Sabrina Havens laughed as they shook their bottles. Several other students called each other over to look at each other’s tornadoes.
“We’re spinning the bottle and making tornadoes!” Sabrina said, with a smile as the swirling tornado formed inside her water bottles.