Community Corner

Wood View Reading Club Members 'Visit' Africa

Students took a look at a photographic safari and learned about Tanzania as part of the Wood View Elementary School summer reading club.

Editor's note: The following is a press release from . 

Several dozen students went on an African safari Tuesday as part of the school’s Summer Reading Club program.

Former teacher and library media specialist Judy Fox, who operates the Fox In A Box program at Wood View and is a substitute teacher in VVSD, led the safari which was based on her experiences on a trip to Tanzania a year ago.

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Fox began the imaginary trip by reading the book “We’re Going on a Lion Hunt” and showing students via Google Earth how she flew from Chicago to Amsterdam and then on to Mt. Kilimanjaro Airport in Tanzania. Each student received a world map to follow the journey.

After viewing hundreds of slides from not only her visit (designed to help teachers there learn how to teach English) but also from a real photographic safari she took, Fox helped the Reading Club members make mini textbooks similar to those used by students in the African country.

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“They need to know what it’s like not to have a real textbook,” Fox said.

Among some of the facts Reading Club members learned:

  • The country’s electrical system is operated by water power so during the dry season, they have no electricity.
  • Most of the teachers there only have a high school education and they are paid $50 a month to teach.
  • Everybody lives together in compounds, “even the animals.”
  • A classroom in the school she visited totaled 40 students. None of them speak English but the country’s officials have issued a mandate that they must learn English.
  • Most of the students sleep at the school because they live far away.

At the end of the “safari," students had an opportunity to check out animal books and read them with a partner.

Wood View’s Summer Reading Club is designed to help students focus on reading and writing during their time off from the regular school year.


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