Shreve class has perfect guest to celebrate 100th day
Shreve Elementary School kindergarten teacher Judy Campbell introduces one of her students, Hunter Raw, to her 100-year-old grandmother, Mary Jane Culbertson, on the 100th day of school. Each of Campbell’s 23 students got a chance to ask Culbertson a question over video chat.
In the 24 years Judy Campbell has been teaching kindergarten, she has always tried to make the 100th day of school a special event for her students. This year, though, she had the perfect guest to top off the celebration at Shreve Elementary School.
Campbell introduced her class — via video chat — to her 100-year-old grandmother, Mary Jane Culbertson, a resident of West View Healthy Living in Wooster.
“I told my students I had a special guest — my grandmother — and she really is 100 years old,” Campbell said.
The video chat happened in the school’s media lab at the end of the day, in which students had been focusing on activities centered around the number 100. Students had made 100 fingerprints, done 100 exercises, recorded how many times they could blink their eyes and clap their hands in 100 seconds, and were challenged to give 100 hugs and record them in a book to bring back to school. They’d also written what it was like to be 100 years old, as well as had a photo of themselves aged by 100 years using a computer app.
Campbell’s dad, Jon Arnold, was with his mother at the center when the students communicated with Culbertson. Also by her side was Jackie Wolff, cognitive enhancement specialist in West View Healthy Living’s Bridges Unit, where Culbertson resides.
“It was fun for Jane to see what was happening in her granddaughter’s class,” Wolff said. “She loved talking to those kids.”
Campbell introduced her 23 students individually to her grandmother, whose image was projected on a big screen. “Everyone had a question, and we went through every single one,” Campbell said.
The kindergartners wanted to know her favorite movie ("Gone with the Wind"), her favorite color (blue), her favorite fabric (denim), her favorite game (Scrabble, which she still plays) and her favorite superhero, though she wasn’t sure what that was and didn’t think she had one.
The students also learned Culbertson had worked as a pharmacy technician at Gray’s Drugstore in Wooster for 25 years.
“You could tell she was excited,” Campbell said of her grandmother. “The kids were excited; they were attentive.”
Campbell said she told her grandmother when she turned 99 she wanted to bring her to school for show and tell on her 100th birthday, and she giggled and laughed. Then when she turned 100 on July 22, Campbell told her again.
However, due to the amount of students who had been ill, Campbell said she felt it was unsafe to bring her grandmother to the school. That’s when the video-chat idea developed.
“It was a wonderful activity,” Wolff said. “It’s great for the residents to still be able to have those intergenerational connections.”
Wolff said she is already thinking about ways to incorporate more of these types of activities using this type of technology at West View Healthy Living.
In a visit with Culbertson and Arnold at the senior facility, her son spoke of how his mom taught him patience and the importance of a parent’s role. “She put me first,” he said, even during financial struggles when the family could afford just one meal a day. Instead of sharing meals during financial struggles, she gave the meal to him.
Arnold said he doesn’t play Scrabble with his mom. “I make up words, and she knows it,” he said.
Campbell said it was hard to describe the joy of having her grandmother be part of the 100th day of school celebration. “I have no words,” she said. “It’s something I’ll treasure forever.”