The People have Spoken!

Well, we have our three winners.

If you haven't been following the t-shirt design story, the Perkins School is working with Rightside Shirts to make t-shirts as a way to raise money for well needed art supplies.  All the kids who wanted to, made a piece of art that could possibly be put on the shirts. 

Last week, the kids voted for their favorite designs.  And here they are...

Or, at least here are the artists showing the winning numbers of the designs that were used to conceal their identities.  

Click on any picture to make it larger.

And now, introducing the decorations for our new t-shirts with their makers!  Pick your favorites, ladies and gentlemen, the order forms will be available soon. 

Voting Day: May the Best Designs Win

As mentioned before, Thursday was Voting Day for the Perkins School.  The whole student body was deciding which three of the nine finalists should be the designs put onto our Perkins t-shirts.  Here are our candidates:

Click on any picture to make it larger.

As you can see, each picture has a number.  That number is an easy way for a student to designate which is his or her favorite choice. It also covers the artist's name so people will vote for the design and not the person who made it.  The three drawings that get the most votes will be the winners.

Learning to vote in privacy so you can keep your choices secret (if you want to) is a little confusing at first.

The kids eventually got the hang of it.

A few kindergartens needed a hand, though, when their favorite picture was labeled with the hardest number to write!

Fold up your ballot when you put it into the box and no one knows how you voted.  That's one of the privileges of our democracy.

Some people didn't mind revealing their choices.  And, that's okay too.  

One first grader announced, "I liked number two."  Then a classmate got angry for a moment, saying, "You copied me!"  Sometimes it takes a while to realize it's good for people to be on your side when you're voting for something.

These kids all went for #5.  "I liked it because it was so creative," remarked one of them.  That unattached hand to the right of the picture is pointing to #7.  That was her choice.  Why?  "I love the earth," she answered.

So many kids, so many opinions.  What designs will win.  Come back Monday to find out.

And the T-shirt Finalists Are...

As you know, the Perkins School is having t-shirts made as a way to raise money for well needed art supplies.  All the kids who wanted to, made a piece of art that could possibly be put on the t-shirts.  If you go back to our posts from last week, you can read all about it.

Rightside Shirts has selected nine designs for us to vote on.  The top three will be offered for sale with the profits being donated for next year's art supplies.

HERE ARE THE FINALISTS...

If you can't get a good look at them from this perspective, a couple of our kids also offered to present them to you.

Start the debates.  Think about your favorites.  The vote for the winners will be tomorrow!!!

ART IS...

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

Click on pictures to make them larger.

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.

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!

Democracy by Doing--Part 2

Yes, it's America's Election Day and adults are streaming (we hope!) to vote for the president of the United States.

If you had read yesterday's post, you'd know that our report on the race in Ms. Murphy's classroom had just begun.  The kids divided into three parties (The Fish Party, The Hermit Crab Party, and The Gecko Party).  They were campaigning to choose an animal to be their class pet.

They started to make posters and slogans to sell their candidates to their classmates.  

Some used the straightforward approach.

Some kids realized that all the advantages that they listed for having, say, a fish or gecko, would be good, persuasive points in a campaign. After all, a person from The Gecko Party might be convinced by a good argument to vote for a hermit crab on Election Day.  Or maybe the reverse. Right?

Good artwork or graphics are always helpful too.

Will the kids be able to change each others' minds?

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!