Madison Elementary School teacher Erin Casper gets silly stringed by a student at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

PARKERSBURG — After completing the online assignments they received at the start of the school year, Madison Elementary School’s entire student body was allowed to silly string the school’s staff as a reward Wednesday afternoon.

Coming up with the idea last October, Principal Valissa Porter and Assistant Principal Lee Moore wanted a way to encourage their students to do their assignments in Schoology and i-Ready during remote or blended learning, Porter said.

“Number one we want to make it fun, number two we wanted as many kids participating as possible. They could also get back at us for having to make them work so hard at home,” Porter said. “It’s awesome because they get to be outside, have fun and it does make it feel like we’re back to somewhat a normal school day. This is the first time, honestly, the whole school has been out together. So that’s very exciting to see and I hope it means that we’re going in a great direction moving forward.”

Plans for the event were made in the fall, but with Wood County schools going to remote and blended learning for the majority of the school year and the poor weather, the event was delayed, said Porter.

Students earned tickets for completing their assignments and put those tickets in a drawing so that they could silly string a teacher once a certain amount of tickets had been reached.

Madison Elementary School teacher Christopher Wilson gets silly stringed by students at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

Porter said the students were up to the challenge and reached the highest amount of tickets possible.

Teachers were selected randomly Wednesday and one of those random teachers, Christopher Wilson, said getting sprayed was fun and he was able to keep his hair dry by using a shark hat used in his classes.

“It was fun, the kids have been working hard this year, doing the best they can at home. She (Valissa) asked me to do it and I said, ‘Yeah, no problem,'” Wilson said. “It wasn’t as bad as I thought. I figured it would stain the clothes and all that stuff. But the kids liked it, anything that gets them motivated helps.”

Other teachers selected were Erin Casper, Tracy Newlon, Melanie Flinn and Susan Piatt.

The first of hopefully many events to reward students, Moore said he has a couple of ideas for next time and was glad the students had a good time as well.

Madison Elementary School assistant principal Lee Moore, left, and Tracy Newlon, right, get silly stringed by students at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

“We’re very proud of them for how hard they work. We know that this has been so challenging for everybody and this was just a really fun way to try to reward them working so hard at home,” Moore said.

You can contact Tyler Bennett at tbennett@newsandsentinel.com

Madison Elementary School principal Valissa Porter gets silly stringed by students at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

Madison Elementary School teacher Melanie Flinn gets silly stringed by students at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)

Madison Elementary School teacher Susan Piatt gets silly stringed by students at Madison Elementary on Wednesday afternoon. (Photo by Tyler Bennett)