OSWEGO, NY – A Christmas card exchange was a bit unique for the Charles E. Riley Elementary School.

Art teacher Rebecca Woods and Library Media Specialist Molly Clark collaborated for a special Christmas card exchange for their students.

The Charles E. Riley second graders did a project that involved sending and receiving cards from schools throughout North America. The students learned quite a bit about towns, cities, schools, classrooms and other information regarding the sender. In front standing are Makayla Nadzadi, Zoe Jiang, Kamryn Pagliaroli, Grace Tolley, Gracie Colloca, Art teacher Rebecca Woods, Principal Dr. Linda Doty and Library Media Specialist Molly Clark. Seated in back are Sophia Babcock and Michael Harris.

Woods said, “Our second graders at Riley sent a snow globe card to other students across North America. We have received cards from a variety of places.”

The cards were sent to and came from 23 different states and two different Canadian provinces.

Woods noted, “We also sent a few to children’s hospitals and wounded soldiers.”

In the main hallway, in front of the media center, cards hung on display for all students to see and read.

Woods explained, “This was a very special project that involved every one of our second graders. We asked that the cards coming to our school  include information about home, city, state and classroom. There have been very many interesting things. The kids loved opening the cards to read all the information and see how each class did the snow globes.”

Clark was very enthusiastic about the project and indicated the childrens’ excitement grew more each days as responses arrived at the east side Oswego school.

Providing an overview she said, “We were teamed with 58 other classrooms to exchange holiday cards plus, each classroom sent at least one card to a children’s hospital. We also decided to send cards to the Syracuse VA Hospital.”

Continuing she said, “Every year the project coordinator chooses a theme for the holiday cards and this year’s theme was snow globes. In addition to the cards, we received several letters and interesting artifacts from our partner schools.”

This project incorporated art, social studies, math, English Language Arts, and science.

Riley students practiced math skills by adding up the number of boys and girls in each partner class and comparing it to the number in their own class.

They also learned about the climate in various parts of the country and became very good at predicting the average December temperature based on the school’s location on the map.

The mixture of education, fun and excitement create a wonderful learning environment and Charles E. Riley second graders had a great time with this special project.