Stampede To Read ~ 5th Annual Read-A-Thon

March 3-7, 2014 ~ Being a Partner in Education with an elementary school is a really cool thing but having another business as a Partner in Education is awesome! Midway Heights Elementary School in Columbia, MO is super lucky to have 4 great Partners in Education.... D&H Drugstore, Midway Electric, Inc., Spectrum Utilities and the Boone County Fire Protection District!

I gotta say when Tanya Alberty (D&H Drugstore) came up with the idea of creating a week long read-a-thon we didn't really know how it was going to work trying to get 70+ community members out to the school to read to our classrooms but with each passing year it keeps getting better and better! Tanya is a lot of fun to work with and she keeps us organized! (It's true... I can't hold a candle to her organization skills)

Then we had the awesome pleasure of adding Spectrum Utilities and Boone County Fire Protection District to our team and we have a really fun time... maybe a little more fun that the students! It's exciting to be on our 5th year of the read-a-thon and with each passing year we come up with a new theme (yep we totally try to out do ourselves each year) and this year's theme was right up my alley... "Stampede to Read"!

We kicked off the week by giving each student a Midway blue bandana (our school colors are blue and white) to use all week so if they didn't have anything cowboy or cowgirl they would totally fit in with their bandanas! This was a huge hit with all the students! We had many great guest readers out and used Twitter to tweet photos with the hashtag #midwaystampede2014 (you can check the pictures out by visiting Twitter here: https://twitter.com/search?q=%23midwaystampede2014&src=hash)

Then on Thursday night we had Literacy Night were the students and their families come to the school and play games that tie into our theme such as tic-tac-toe, a boot toss, dress like a sheriff (craft project), visit the Bookmobile (thanks to Daniel Boone Regional Library) and even learn to line dance from the awesome people at Texas Roadhouse! Here's some fun pictures from our Literacy Night:

Ms. Stewart played her guitar as everyone arrived! 

These cowgirls helped get everyone checked in!

They had snacks at "The Waterin' Hole"....

check out books from the Bookmobile...

Dress Like A Sheriff... a craft they could do with their parents....

 draw their own Wanted Poster...

a quick game of tic-tac-toe....

have fun with nerf guns and a little target practice....

 learn how to line dance with Texas Roadhouse....
(It was so cute watching the kiddos learn how to dance.. they had so much fun!)

have fun with a little boot toss too!

It was a really fun night to celebrate a super fun week!

Our friends at Texas Roadhouse brought some peanuts to share with everyone!

When the students turned in their passports from visiting each station they got a cute little prize!

We had some cute cowboys and cowgirls that really enjoyed this week...
It's always bittersweet for this week to end.
Until next year.... Y'all take care!