Hillside Rewards Student Reading With Teacher Talent Show

Hillside Elementary School students were treated to a surprise talent show Thursday, performed by the school's teachers and staff.

The show was a prize for the students winning a contest called "Super Buckets of Reading," in which students and teachers logged the time they spent reading after school and at home.

The approximately 350 students recorded 131,791 minutes during the month of February. The estimated 60 teachers and school staff logged about 95,000 minutes. 

"You did an awesome job," reading specialist Norm Andrews told the K-5 student body assembled into the gym for the surprise. 

Superintendent Matt Gibson told students reading and writing would be critical skills for life.

Children burst into laughter during the hour-long show, in which 3rd grade teacher Jeff Karbowski played a song with the "nose flute" and Principal Julie Kremer karate-chopped two pieces of wood.

The teachers danced and sang to popular songs whose lyrics they had rewritten to reflect the importance of reading.

Some children squealed in excitement as Justin Bieber (aka teacher Shane Radosevich disguised in a hoodie sweatshirt and sunglasses) sang "Baby Baby." Some first-grade girls were overheard gushing, "I think that was really him!"

The lights went down for a dance number with teachers wearing multi-colored glow-in-the-dark outfits, and other teachers literally let their hair down as the whipped their heads around wearing '80s rock-band wigs. 

Two kindergarten teachers dressed as Mr. Potato Head. And the entire student body got on their feet to loudly sing the finale, a Black Eyed Peas song rewritten to praise reading.

Before the children returned to their classes, teacher Karen Lampe told them: "We didn't beat you but we had an awful lot of fun losing."

Stay tuned to Brookfield Patch for a video montage of the talent show that should be posted in coming days.