Oroville Elementary School Principal Joan Hoehn is head over heels for the Principal’s Challenge. The principal challenged her students to read over 5000 books in February – and they did. So Hoehn stood on her head as one of the many rewards the kids ea

OROVILLE – February means the Principal’s Challenge at Oroville Elementary where the students earn motivational rewards if they meet the principal’s goal and this year that meant Joan Hoehn ended up standing on her head as one of the rewards.

This year the challenge was about filling buckets, a theme the whole school adopted from the book “Have you filled a bucket today?” written by Carol McCloud.The book talks about positive behavior as children see how rewarding it is to express daily kindness, appreciation and love.

Visitors to the elementary school saw students all over reading in every available corner using any extra time to read as many books as possible.

On Day 6 of the Challenge students had read 1500 books and earned their first reward, buckets of popcorn for each class. In addition, after learning the song herself, Principal Hoehn taught the children the song; “There’s a hole in my bucket.” By Day 14 the kids had read 4889 books and earned a piñata for each class level.

Two days later the number of books read got up to 5921 and the students earned a Bucket Filled Field Day. The principal and the students planned to deliver a filled bucket to the community and share the story of “Filling a bucket.”