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Show WedThursFri, December 10-12, 2003 The Park Record A-11 Collecting pennies turns into art Trailside first-graders help Arts-Kids By JENNIFER R. MERBACK Of the Record staff Polly Panos' first-grade class is special - not because the students are bright and eager to learn -but because they received the only Arts-Kids lesson last Friday. "The let us cut with their scissors," scis-sors," said six-year-old Tori Vipond. The first-graders earned the presentation after collecting the most pennies throughout the school for the. non-profit program. pro-gram. The fundraiser took place during dur-ing the week of Halloween and challenged Trailside students to do odd jobs and extra chores around the home to earn spare .change for donating. Each classroom class-room competed for a one-hour Arts-Kids lesson. The school raised just under $375 with a matching donation from an anonymous company. Panos' class collected $60. "It was a new idea, but seemed to be very successful." said Trailside counselor and Arts-Kids Arts-Kids board member Alison Vallejo. Parent Teacher Association (PTA) President . Lindsay Hernandez says the penny drive came about after Arts-Kids approached the PTA asking for a donation and they wanted to help. "It's a wonderful program," said Hernandez. "The PTA is aware of all the good Arts-Kids does," said Vallejo Arts-Kids is an independent local program that empowers youth through expressive arts. Incorporating the visual arts, poetry music, drama, the program pro-gram is made up of students recommended rec-ommended by their school counselors. coun-selors. To reward Panos' class, two members of the Arts-Kids staff, Development Director Karen Jenson and Art Director Lezlee Amoss made holiday ornaments with the kids. Using cutouts in the shape of squares, circles, stars and hearts, they made picture frames to surround Polaroids of themselves. "We made a decoration with our face in it," , said J'Amy VanderVeur. Arts-Kids primarily works with third, fourth and fifth-grade students. Jenson says this was her first experience bringing Arts-Kids Arts-Kids to first-graders. "I was impressed with how verbal they are and their maturity." maturi-ty." she said. Just like a normal Arts-Kids class, the students passed around the talking stick and took turns telling each other about the happy parts of their day or week. "They practiced listening to each other." said Jenson. Arts-Kids focuses on the diversity within each group and aims to reach different cultures and socio-economic backgrounds, back-grounds, so Jenson made sure to 1 1 GRAYSON WESTPARK RECORD Polly Panos' first-grade class at Trailside Elementary earned a special art lesson from Arts-Kids after raising the most money for the program in a penny drive held during Halloween. stress that the decorations were support," said Jenson. for the holidays and not just Christmas. ' "We had one child pipe up and say she's Jewish, so we took a moment to talk with the kids about diversity." she said. The first of its kind in the Park City schools, the penny drive helped increase awareness of the program among parents and teachers. "We still don't have the parentteacher par-entteacher support that we want in Summit County. Trailside really real-ly stepped up and said this is a great program that we want to Hernandez sees the increase in awareness, too, and hopes to challenge the other elementary schools to join them next year. "More parents know about Arts-Kids now. Maybe 1 0-per-ccnt knew about it before, but 50-pcrcent 50-pcrcent do now," said Hernandez. "We value our relationship with Arts-Kids. It's a nice way to augment the art that teachers do." said Vallejo. Panos' class agrees. "I like to do art." said Scarlett Scoggan. Toshiba Found, funds science education Continued from A-10 go toward the purchase of additional addi-tional microscopes, an incubator and kits for studying osmosis and diffusion. The kids can't wait. Already aware of the importance of water, they are eager to share their knowledge. "Water provides moisture to our bodies and keeps our skin from drying out," said fourth-grader fourth-grader Dax Geary. . "Plants need water and we can't breathe without plants," said classmate Kai Sajka. According to its website, the mission of the Toshiba America Foundation is to "contribute to the quality of science and mathe matics education in U.S. communities commu-nities by investing in projects designed by classroom teachers to improve science and mathematics mathe-matics education for students in grades K thru 12." The foundation was created with help from Toshiba America, Inc. and the six Toshiba America group companies operating in the U.S.: Toshiba America Information Systems, Inc.; Toshiba America Medical Systems, Inc.; Toshiba America Electronics Components, Inc.; Toshiba America Consumer Products, Inc, Toshiba International Corporation and Toshiba America Business Solutions. ' ; "This is our second grant from ; the Toshiba Foundation, which they say, is unusual," said Davics. The first grant, awarded a few 'year,s ago, was to study high-altitude gardening. The students built a greenhouse and tried their best to grow plants in the winter. "They learned how hard it is." said Davies. Moffat helped write the current cur-rent grant, detailing the theme of the lesson and the research necessary. nec-essary. Her background includes a bachelor's and master's degree in chemistry and an additional master's degree in food chemistry. chem-istry. In her second year at Colby, she previously taught science and French at the French ;American International School in San Francisco. She is thrilled with the prospect of teaching the students stu-dents about the need for conserving conserv-ing and not polluting the water. "I want the kids to know that water is very important. It's part of our body and makes us sick if it's polluted," said Moffat. "We're in a drought and without with-out water we wouldn't be here." said student Nour Alkudsi. After they complete their studies, the students will write articles about their findings and display presentations of the project. proj-ect. In June, the school will submit a progress report to the foundation.; founda-tion.; ".We. . hope-.-, there will more,-grants more,-grants to come," said Davies. When a wonderful gift just isn t good enougJ mcredwle Selection n ' V LlADKp If you're shopping for Lladro, you've got to shop Modern Display. We have the largest selection of Lladr6 in Salt Lake. 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