A midway celebration took place at Kingpin Bowling with the G.A.P. (Gaining Academic Progress) tutoring program participants from Clear Creek Elementary. For some children, it was their first experience at a bowling alley so not only was it fun but educational as well. Helping with the event were athletes who serve as mentors at the school like Andrew Page, with Letrivion Kennedy, TJ Rawlins, TJ Robinson, Shamel Mooney

Volunteer Pam Dennison and her dog Lilly listen to the fluent reading of a 2^nd grader at Clear Creek’s recent Reading Night. Our goal was to show parents and students ways to help their child make their reading sound natural, like a conversation. With us for the event were our amazing volunteers from Pawsibilities Unleashed and their trained therapy dogs. The dogs listened non-judgmentally as second-graders practiced reading aloud.

A Clear Creek Elementary third-grade classroom understand education is like baseball: You have to have a game plan, motivation plan, and regular warm-ups to get started. The Homerun Herndons, under the guidance of teacher Stephanie Herndon, learn in an atmosphere with a baseball theme. There are bats hanging from the ceiling, messages about home runs or pitches on the door, and a reading corner with a baseball chair - all with logos for the Cincinnati Reds. Students even have T-shirts with a special message. All this diamond discussion caught the attention of Jamie Ramsey, Assistant Director of Media Relations for the Cincinnati Reds, who posted information and a slide show on his blog.

Herndon and her husband, John (sports editor for the Anderson News in Lawrenceburg), spoke with Ramsey recently at the Reds Caravan in Lexington. He loved the idea and asked for photos and information. Herndon said, “I am very excited about the opportunity for my class to be mentioned on the Better Off Red blog.” She told him how, “Each day our schedule is a “game plan”, we have learning targets that we use in our unit plans and I called those our “Strike Zone”; we had a wall of fame where I included many different baseball players and famous quotes  then eventually I started to put student work on this board; we have our helper’s chart entitled “Look Who’s Pitching in”….it is the baseball diamond with students’ names on baseballs and they rotate around the field in different position for the week with different classroom jobs.”