Southern California fifth-graders: "Call Me a Duck"

All they want for Christmas is … for you to "Call Me a Duck."

Teacher Connor Berry's fifth-grade class at Oxford Preparatory Academy in Chino, Calif., adopted the University of Oregon this year, when each class at the school chose a university to represent.

Berry's students took their effort over the top – and "Won the Day," in UO parlance – when they lip-synced "Call Me a Duck," the 2010 breakout single by UO a capella group "On the Rocks." The fifth-graders parodied the original YouTube video, beginning with a green-and-white umbrella twirl and ending with an en masse "throw the O."

Berry – a graduate of Chapman University in Orange, Calif. – said he chose the UO for his students "because I thought it was a university I could get the students to get excited about (it worked!)."

"My kids have really gotten into the spirit and love being Ducks," Berry said in an email to the UO. "So much, in fact, that we came together to create this video. I told my students that we could send it to Oregon when we were done. I thought you might get a kick out of it."

Oxford Preparatory Academy (whose motto is "Where Champions Are Made") is a kindergarten-through-eighth-grade charter school with Southern California campuses in Chino, San Marcos and South Orange County.

"Our collegiate atmosphere supports our school vision, where all students are introduced to the comprehensive benefits of attending a higher-learning institution," Oxford Preparatory's executive director, Sue Roche, said on the school's website.

- from the UO Office of Strategic Communications