Check Back! More of Oliver's travels coming soon!

Nov 4 U.S. Election Night Today I watched people vote to elect a new President of the United States. After the election, a lot of people went to Chicago to wait for the results and see one of the candidates, Barack Obama. Mr. Obama lives in Chicago. I was really excited to see all the people and to see a real presidential candidate live and up close. He turned out to be the winner of the election, and his family will go to the White House in January to live there. This election is also very important for history, because it's the first time that an African-American was elected president in this country. Here are some U.S. kids talking about how they feel about the new president-elect, thanks to Nickelodeon.com.

October 12 Petrified Forest National Park / Painted Desert, Arizona Today I am visiting the Petrified Forest, below, and the Painted Desert National Forest in Arizona.  The Painted Desert is rumored to have been named by a Spanish explorer because the hills looked like they were painted with the colors of the sunset. It is 93,500 acres and stretches over 160 miles near the southeastern rim of the Grand Canyon to the Petrified Forest.  It is a long expanse of badland hills and although barren, it is a beautiful landscape of rainbow colors. The Petrified Forest is one of many examples all over the world of once-living wood that has been turned to stone by the handiwork of time, water, and minerals. The remnants of this once magnificent pine forest have taken millions of years to resurface.

October 10 Gateway Arch, St. Louis, Missouri This eye-catching shining steel arch that visitors approaching from the East first see when they cross the Missouri River at St. Louis, Mo. is the tallest national monument in the United States at 630 feet.  Each year, approximately 1 million visitors ride the trams to the top. On a windy day, at the very top you might be able to feel the structure swaying in the breeze, but because an arch is a very stable structure this monument usually sways only one-half inch in either direction, and will only sway up to nine inches either way in a 150 mph wind. Nine hundred tons of stainless steel was used to build the arch.

September 18 My Neighborhood Across the street from the DeMotte Library is the Fairchild House. It’s a DeMotte landmark that is being renovated. The library has been able to hold special events there, including scary stories at Halloween, and a group of people in the town want to use the building as a community center. I thought I would check out the foundation for the new brick retaining wall.

September 15 Clean-up time! Wow! I can wash my overalls here at Sunrise Cleaners in DeMotte. If you don't know how to do laundry but want to, here's a great website to go over with mom and dad. Keeping your own clothes clean can be a lot of help around the house, plus it's really a special feeling knowing you know how to take care of your own stuff.

September 15 Shopper in Training I'm a "Shopper in Training" today at Tysen's Family Market in DeMotte, learning about food and nutrition. It's always a good idea to have plenty of fruits and vegetables, especially when you can find some that you like. The folks at your local grocery store, make sure we shoppers have lots of fresh food to choose from every time we shop. These shopping bags (made from recycled pop bottles!) are available in a lot of stores, not just grocery stores, and really help our environment. The store is also a great place to find out about library events, and you can find copies of the library newsletter there if you look on the community display board.

September, 2008 Oak Grove Wednesdays The library helps provide books, magazines & movies to the residents of Oak Grove retirement village in DeMotte. Today was Library Card Sign Up Day. They have a nice in-house library and big comfy chairs at Oak Grove. Wednesday is movie night and everyone gets their own bag of popcorn delivered right to their door. There’s a lot to do at Oak Grove. I liked the pool table by the aviary. An aviary is a place where birds are kept, and you can see the one at Oak Grove behind me in the picture. Many of the residents there enjoy the weekly book club with Yvonne. Today she read the book about ME!

September 17, 2008 My Very Own Card September is Library Card Sign Up Month. Jill at the DeMotte Library helped me with the paperwork to get my very own library card! I chose a wallet-sized card. I checked out the book Pinocchio. It’s due back October 1.

September 15, 2008 Six-Month Checkup Today I got a six-month dental check up. Dr. Pampel & Dr. Wooley’s Dental Office in DeMotte managed to squeeze me into their busy schedule. Julie the hygienist cleaned my teeth – I had NO cavities! I even got a balloon! The American Dental Hygenists' Association has a neat website for kids to learn all about teeth and caring for teeth. Did you know that teeth have different shapes for the different jobs they do in your mouth?

September, 2008 I love it here! I love it here! Everyone at the DeMotte Library is so nice & friendly. There are so many activities going on. Ginger’s planters at the front entrance are just beautiful! WOW! It’s Pre-School Visit Day. The kids are coloring and shared their crayons with me.

September 13, 2008 Soccer Fan! Today I watched soccer games at Rensselaer's Brookside Park with my new friend Britt Houghton. She plays for the Filson's team in the St. Joe Youth Soccer League. Her team didn't win but they had fun "herding" the ball. Soccer is big in Rensselaer. If you want to learn more about soccer, you can visit the Jasper County Public Library for books and movies. If you have a computer, you can also watch lots of how-to videos at a site my friends showed me called "expert village." There are 336 videos on soccer from coaching to stretching to skills and tricks. September 9, 2008 Friends at the Park Today two of the workers at the Rensselaer Library took me to nearby Brookside Park to play and meet some new friends. My friend Zoe played basketball with me a little. I also played on the monkey bars, rode the swing set and played in the play house pictured behind me. It is the perfect size for me or anyone my size. There is a postcard in my backpack telling all about the day. July 23, 2008 Whale Watching Today we visited Bar Harbor, Maine, and rode a boat out into the Gulf of Maine to watch whales. We saw two whales playing together. Bar Harbor is a very popular place for people to visit in Maine. It is right next to Acadia National Park. Before we left, we ate at an outdoor restaurant on the dock. This seagull came very close to our table even though there were lots of people in the restaurant. This is me with my friend Marcia, from Rensselaer, who introduced me to this friendly Maine lobster. Catching lobsters for food is one of the main industries of Maine. On the wall behind me you can see a lobster buoy (painted yellow with a white pole sticking out of it). Each lobster fisherman has a special design they paint on their buoys so they can tell them apart, like a brand for cattle. They attach a buoy to each trap they put in the water and the buoy floats at the surface of the water so they can find the trap again. The lobsters crawl into the traps and then the lobster men boat back out later in the day and pick up the traps attached to their buoys. If they're really lucky, they have a lobster in each trap. July 21, 2008 A Vist to Maine My Jasper County friends have come to Maine for a week! Maine is the most north-east state in the U.S.A. We were visiting friends near Phillips, Maine. The house where they live is in the mountains, and not very far from the Canada border on the west side of Maine. Today we picked wild blueberries that grow in the yard near an old rock wall. Later we made blueberry pancakes and ate them with real maple syrup. I passed a syrup tree on the road. It had a metal flap attached to it and a hook for the sap bucket. The blueberries are different in Maine. They are very tiny, a little smaller than a green pea. They taste a little different too because they are wild. The bushes we picked grow very low to the ground. They were not much taller than the grass. Who is Oliver? The Journey of Oliver K. Woodman tells the tale of Oliver, a little wooden man making his way across country. Read it to your favorite little person. You can also meet the author, Darcy K. Pattison, who will be coming to Saint Joseph's College in Rensselaer on October 7 from 2-3 p.m. (Reading level: Picture Book/Easy) Visit Darcy Pattison's website to download free lesson plans for using Oliver in your home or classroom to teach geography, build your own Oliver K. Woodman, or use Pattison's other books in your lessons. This book is one of the 2008 selections of BOOKS TO BRIDGE THE REGION, a reading initiative that encompasses seven Northwest Indiana counties: Jasper, Lake, LaPorte, Newton, Porter, Pulaski and Starke. We encourage area residents to read books on a common theme and, thus, foster conversation between people and between generations. Keep reading this page this fall for what Oliver has been doing with people in the JASPER COUNTY area!