PROCTORVILLE - Third graders at Fairland West Elementary received a golden ticket Wednesday - a boarding pass for a ride on The Polar Express.

The students participated in an interactive video conference from the Muskingum Valley Educational Service Center that was centered on the book &#8220The Polar Express” written by Chris Van Allsburg.

The conference was a math and literature lesson for the students involving things such as brainstorming, story sequencing, problem solving and graphing.

&#8220I liked the boarding pass,” third grader Eric Petersen said. &#8220If you did not have it, you could not get to the North Pole.”

Petersen explained they received a golden ticket before they left Fairland West and traveled to the Fairland High School library. The pass read: &#8220Boarding ticket - departs from Fairland West, arrives at Fairland High School.”

This was the first video conference for the third graders who said they enjoyed many different aspects of the program including the ability to converse with someone via the television.

&#8220It was really cool the way she responded to us,” Petersen said.

The students were read the book earlier in the week by their teachers. Several of the students said they had seen the movie or read the book before. Some of the students had the book at home and brought it in this week to share with their classmates.

&#8220I thought the movie was really neat,” Jacob Wireman said. &#8220The book is also great.”

Wireman, who owns a copy of the book and brought it in to share, said he really enjoyed reading the book.

Recently, students at the school had a literary event and for his project. Wireman chose to do a report on &#8220The Polar Express.”

His book report contained interesting facts and vivid artwork from the story.

Interesting for other students was the fact that they could see themselves and communicate with someone else via the television screen.

Classmates Emily Yeley and Victoria Misner agreed their favorite part of the conference was having the book read to them and getting to go to the high school.

&#8220It was good,” Yeley said. &#8220I liked how we were all on TV. Our teacher read the book to us yesterday.”

Misner said she really enjoyed traveling to the North Pole, even though it was a little cold outside on Wednesday morning.

&#8220I thought it was really cool,” she said.