Summer Fun at Christian Life School, Moore

Christian Life School in Moore recently had a Father and Family fishing tournament. The summer Discovery Camp children and their families participated. The winners of our tournament were Sarah Fiely and her dad who caught 30 fish and Blaine Simpson and his dad who caught an 11 inch bass. The Discovery Camp children in our Musical Theatre class will be performing the musical, "Stomp,” at our end of summer celebration, August 1. The cooking class is having an Iron Chef cook-off competition, as well.
MetroFamily Magazine

The August issue of My Hometown magazine will feature an article about our school.  It will include information about our fishing tournament, musical, and summer programs.  Be sure to check it out!


Hideaway Pizza Collage Contest
Honorable Mention - Elementary Division

Christian Life School
"Art After School" Program
Moore, OK

Our collage represents the people of Oklahoma politics, from Donkeys to Elephants and everything in between. First we learned that politics are the actions, practices or opinions of people. So we decided that as long as there were people in Oklahoma there must have been politics. It was a lot of fun to learn a little bit about all the people that have lived in Oklahoma and imagine the "in-between".

We know that from about 500 to 1300 AD the Spiro Mound Builders lived in Oklahoma. Back in those days the politics were probably much different than what we know about. They probably chose their leaders by who was the strongest or who was the best hunter! When the Spanish explorer Coronado came to Oklahoma the Plains Indian tribes of Osage, Kiowa, Apache and Comanche lived in Oklahoma. We know that they must have elected leaders like chiefs.
In 1803 Oklahoma was sold to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase. Politicians in Washington took action to make this happen. Then in 1830 the federal government forced the Five Civilized Tribes to leave their homes in southeastern United States and move to Oklahoma. This was called the Trail of Tears. Oklahoma was then called Indian Territory.
During the Civil War most Indians chose the confederate side because most of the Indians came from the southeastern states. They even brought slaves with them on the Trail of Tears. As you can see this was politics because they chose a side. After the Union army won the war, the United States government punished the Indians for choosing the confederate side by taking away some of their assigned lands. United States Presidents began assigning Territorial governors for Oklahoma. Many of them did not last long because they were not from Oklahoma and didn't understand Oklahoma.

In 1889 the United States government organized a land run to let white settlers get their own land in Oklahoma. It was still not a state yet because there was still a difference between Oklahoma Territory and Indian Territory. Politicians decided to make them join together to make one state.

In 1907 Oklahoma became the 46th state. We learned many interesting things about our Oklahoma politicians. Some governors were impeached and some were even former bandits! One even married his adopted daughter after his wife died. We had all democratic governors until 1963 when Henry Bellmon was elected as a republican. Our first Oklahoma born governor was Robert S. Kerr in 1943. Our state legislature has most always had a Democrat majority but we usually vote for a Republican President of the United States. Because oil is found so much in Oklahoma, many of the people who were politicians were in the oil business.
We had so much fun cutting out pictures, pasting them on our board and learning interesting facts about Oklahoma politics and history. The donkey and elephant symbols were also fun to learn about. We know those symbols were picked by people in other states. We wondered what those symbols might have been if we would have let our Indian ancestors pick the animal symbols! Instead of donkeys and elephants, can you imagine Buffalos and Horses? 
Elizabeth DiSalvatore

Christy Prescott
Christian Life "Art After School" Program
Moore, Oklahoma