ART IS...

 Art is...fun.  inspiring.  creative.  fundraising??

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The Perkins School has embarked on a project with Rightside Shirts.  This young nonprofit company raises money for youth art education by selling t-shirts designed by students.  One hundred percent (that's right, 100%) of the profits are given back to the school to fund art programs and supplies. 

The whole process starts with all our kids drawing or painting or sketching anything they want to.  Here are just a few examples of our kids' contributions.

Jeff and Dylan, the co-founders of Rightside, come to collect the art.  Then they have a hard job as well.  They select five to ten drawings from all these masterpieces as possible candidates for the three(?) to be printed on the t-shirts.  

Normally they would just pick those three themselves.  

We, however, do things the Perkins Way.  

We taught our kindergarteners the basics of democracy by having them vote to name the crane that helped build Phase One of Old Colony.  We reinforced the lesson for Ms. Murphy's second graders when they learned how to campaign, vote, and win or lose gracefully while deciding their class pet.  Now, Leo the leopard gecko is beloved by all.

This time we will have a school-wide election.  We will vote to select which designs will appear on our t-shirts.  Democracy at work.

 Once the t-shirts are made, Perkins kids and our community will be able to buy them for $14, with the profits of that sale feeding our budget for next year's art supplies.

Jeff and Dylan will also decide if one of those designs will go onto the Rightside web site (www.rightsideshirts.org) to be sold to the world!  Again those profits would come back to the Perkins to fund art.

What's going to happen?

Which designs will be voted on?

Stay tuned.

An Overdue Introduction to Leo

Remember, you can click on any picture to make it larger.

This is a lovely letter from Brianna to Gecko, a welcome letter for when Gecko arrived in Ms. Murphy's second grade classroom.  It is heartfelt, but not entirely accurate. Gecko is the second graders' class pet.  They chose him (her?) in a true democratic process.  So it's fair to say that she (he?) is everybody's pet--at least, until summer vacation.  

Perhaps you remember way back in November, Ms. Murphy's class decided upon their class pet using the democratic process (reported on in four consecutive posts) .  They thought about the possible candidates--their advantages and disadvantages. What better way to learn to be a good citizen, especially at the same time another election was going on.  First they formed parties, so they could examine all the pros and cons of three animal choices.  (The idea of a cat never made the final cut.)

Their next move was to form three parties and begin planning their campaigns.  There's nothing better to sell your case than a good-looking poster.  Go Fish!  Go Hermit Crab!     Go Gecko!

Part of any campaign's goal is to convince voters that your choice is the best one. After presenting their speeches, The Fish Party, The Hermit Crab Party and The Gecko Party all understood that one of that week's vocabulary words, persuade, means to try to convince others of your point of view.

Election Day--secret ballot, NO DIRTY TRICKS.  The tally was very carefully counted.  At first it was close, but do you want to know who won? 

We've gone on long enough today.  Next post, we will introduce you to LEO.

The People Have Spoken

The country was busy on November 6th, Election Day.  So was the Perkins School.  It's hard to say if the kids were as tired as the adults on November 7th, but they were still pretty excited.  

Ms. Mansfield's class had taken their own vote. Obama had done better in our fourth grade than he did in the national tally, but he was still elected president of the United States.  One kid in this class was talking about watching the returns.  "At first he was behind," he said, "and I was worried.  But then later it changed."

Our kids also made some posters for their candidates, in which they wrote about issues important to them, including the need to vote.

Soon it will be back to math and other kinds of history.  Learning the need to participate in a democracy, however, is one of the most important lessons of all.

Democracy by Doing--Part 4

"Why don't we vote by raising our hands," asked Aliciana.

"We do sometimes," answered Ms. Murphy," but this time we are voting the same way that adults vote for president.  We'll use secret ballots.  That way you can choose to vote for whatever pet you want. If you're in the Gecko Party, but after thinking about it, decided that a fish is better, you can vote for the fish without feeling any pressure.  No one will know your decision, but you."

It was finally Election Day for Ms. Murphy's second grade class.  After a few weeks of campaigning, they were voting for their new class pet.

 
Ms. Murphy showed them how to go to the booth and write down their choices on the big yellow Post-its.  Then she demonstrated folding the paper up so no one could see it while they walked to slip it in the ballot box.  

"Will your vote count?" someone called out.

"No," Ms. Murphy said.  "Adults are the only ones who can vote for president.  Here, kids are the only ones allowed to vote for our class pet."

Then the action began.  Kids took their pencils and Post-it and sat in the "voting booth" that had sides so no one could see their writing. Then they folded their ballot--one, two, three times--and took it to the box.

Then they folded their ballot--one, two, three times--and took it to the box.  

Principal Brawer popped his head in and added to the discussion.  "Sometimes voting is hard," he said.  "People make their choices and can feel bad when lose.  The same thing happens to adults who vote for the candidate who isn't elected president.  It's still important to all come together and support the winner of an election--whether it's a president or a hermit crab."

But would the pet be a hermit crab?  The tally began.  Vote after vote came out of the box and Ms. Murphy made mark beneath the candidates. For a while it was hard to know that animal was going to win.

Then the votes for the gecko surged.  The gecko won!

From this picture, it looks like most of the kids were pretty happy.  Maybe they took Mr. Brawer's words to heart.  Maybe they were just all excited that they would soon have a brand new member of the class.    

Democracy by Doing--Part 3

This week's posts are following the election taking place in Ms. Murphy's class for the selection of the class pet:

Part of any campaign's goal is to convince voters that your choice is the best one.  There are many ways to do this.  You can explain all the logical reasons for your choice.  You can also appeal to a voter's emotions, make him or her feel happy about your choice.  Or, sad not to pick your choice.  

How do these signs make you think and feel?  Which party is winning your vote?  (Click on any sign to make it bigger and easier to read.)

 

 

 

STAY TUNED...TOMORROW IS THE VOTE!

Learning Democracy by Doing--Part 1

Less than a month before the presidential election, Ms. Murphy's second grade class started an election of their own.  It was a way to teach the kids about the electoral process and to have them democratically decide something important to them.  What was this burning issue?  The kids had to vote to choose a pet for their classroom.

Mrs. Murphy started by teaching the kids to think about the "pros" and "cons" of choosing a specific alternative.  Of course, first she had to teach them about what pros and cons were. The kids caught on quickly, practicing by coming up with the advantages and disadvantages of having a cat as their class pet.  

It soon became clear that a cat was not a good candidate.

Then Ms. Murphy split her class into three groups.  She gave each group a kind of creature to consider (much to the kids' disappointment, bunnies and dogs weren't included!). Each team was supposed to consider an animal's qualifications for the job, and if it was a likely candidate, they would mount a campaign.  They figured this out by, once again, coming up with the animal's pros and cons.  

All three groups found that the pros of their animal outweighed the cons.  The political parties were formed.  

 THE FISH PARTY

THE HERMIT CRAB PARTY

THE GECKO PARTY

The race was on!

Look Who is in our Hallway!

It's getting close to November 6th and look who is standing in the front hall of the Perkins School.  We wish we could actually have President Obama and Republican candidate Mitt Romney here.  On the other hand, they wouldn't be able to stay sot long.  Our principal, Mr. Brawer, brought in some cardboard replicas so we can start thinking about All Things Election.  He also wrote out some questions for our kids to chew on.

 

The kids have started thinking.  Hector, for example, wants to know about the first question, who gets to vote.  He knows you have to be eighteen years old.  Can every 18-year-old in America vote, he wonders.



Hector did say that if he could vote, he would pick President Obama.  Why?  "I would vote for him, because he was the first black president," he said.



Sumeiya said she was interested in the question: How does the losing candidate act when the election is finished and why?  Her thoughts?  "He will act mature," she said.  But, how would be feel?  "Sad," she answers.

Sumeiya definitely knows who she would vote for, but when asked, she decided not to tell.  She has already learned that she doesn't have to.  Every American can keep their political choices private if they want.  That's part of our democracy.  

What else will the kids learn?  Stay tuned. 

Perkins Update

It's been a very quiet time on the Perkins' blog, hasn't it?  That's because it's a very, very busy time in the school.  Even though it seems as if school has been in session forever, there are many things that have to get accomplished at the beginning of the year. 

Learning, of course, then as always.  This week there is also a lot of testing going on.

Next week, however, things will start to rock!  We're starting our look at one of the biggest events happening this fall, here in Boston and throughout the country.  Is it Halloween?  NO!  It's the election for the president of the United States.



Soon, there will also be a big event that is happening right across the street.  Sometime this fall, we will be watching the builders take the first steps to renovating another section of Old Colony.  More lessons in architecture, planning, construction, jobs, math, and more!