Sparking creativity in classrooms Sparking creativity in classrooms (February 18, 2004)

Foundation grants reward teacher innovation in Menlo Park schools

By Marjorie Mader
Almanac Staff Writer

The Menlo Park-Atherton Education Foundation has awarded 21 small grants to teachers, aimed at sparking classroom creativity for the 2,000 children at the district's four schools -- Laurel, Encinal, Oak Knoll and Hillview Middle school.

The grants totaled a record $32,726, and involve about 80 teachers in grades K-8 across the district, said June Flora, foundation president. There are 13 new grants, and eight that won an encore. Amounts for each grant range from $153 to $4,180.

Named after Jeanie Ritchie, the founder and first president of the foundation, the grant program encourages teachers to design, write and collaborate on proposals they want to introduce to their classes.

Many grants -- such as the "Biography Tea," "Renaissance Faire" and "Dancing through the Decades" -- were initiated by one or two teachers, grew in popularity, and became part of the school curriculum after reaching the term limit of four years.

Following are brief descriptions of the 13 new grant projects making their debuts at Laurel, Encinal, Oak Knoll and Hillview schools.

** Reach for the Sky: All 650 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Hillview Middle School will use a "cargo climbing net" -- a heavy duty, netted rope that is bolted to the wall and designed for a number of students to use at once -- to improve their upper body strength. They will monitor their progress through fitness tests in this grant program, developed by Harry Bell with Ernie Imura, Mike Bratt, Mark Schack and Mike Rogers.

** How Much is a Million? To find the answer to this and other weekly "stumper" questions, Encinal students will turn to the 2004 World Almanac. Librarian Lezlie Grant with Gail Bradley devised this grant project to help Encinal School's third-, fourth- and fifth-graders become more information literate through research and analysis. Number enthusiast David Schwartz, author of "How Much is a Million," will talk about big numbers at a school-wide assembly.

**Rocks, Rocks and More Rocks: Samples that accurately display the main characteristics of each kind of rock and mineral are now part of the geology unit for seventh-grade science at Hillview. Students will observe, identify and study the three classifications of rocks and study plate tectonics and California geology. Science teacher Nancy Rankin with Alicia Payton, Tom Lyons and Susan Arrington came up with this project.

** Poet Tree: Bay Area poet and storyteller Gary Turchin will present "Gary T. and his Poet Tree" to help all Encinal students learn about at least two of the traits -- word and voice -- in the newly implemented Six Traits of Writing Program. This grant, developed by librarians Gail Bradley and Lezlie Glare, involves the collaboration of all third- through fifth-grade teachers in Gary T's two assemblies and classroom workshops.

** Dancing Dragons, Leaping Lions and the Magical Moon: First-graders at Oak Knoll School are getting ready to welcome the Chinese New Year. They will learn traditional dances and songs, make music on Chinese instruments, create art and study the lunar cycle. They'll also learn to locate Asia and China on a map. Music specialist Bee Tee with teachers Karen Clancy, Jan San Filippo, Renee Lavezzo, Rosa Mass, Linda Cotter, Julie Zarcone and Barbara Cottrell developed the multidisciplinary grant that incorporates music, art, literature, science and social studies.

** Sea Life Explorations: Suzy Conn, recently retired kindergarten teacher, returns to Laurel School with her popular Sea Life unit, redesigned as a Jeanie Ritchie grant project. It enhances the "By The Sea" unit in the newly adopted Open Court Reading Program. All 144 kindergartens will participate in six sea life lessons presented by Mrs. Conn over six weeks. The finale will be a trip to Steinhart Aquarium and creation of a "Kid Pix" slide show. Kindergarten teacher Kristen Owen with colleagues Maribeth Andolina, Jeannie Cocconi, Andi Dehne, Robin Allen, Sydney Merk and Jeanne McCann designed the grant.

** Our Trip Around the World": Laurel first-graders in Kristen Gracia's classroom will learn about geography, the postal system, and letter-writing skills by sending postcards to family and friends throughout the world. They will request a postcard reply. Students will visit the local post office, track responses via graphs and charts, and use books and magazines to learn more about faraway places.

** Looping the Life Skills Teachers Kristen Gracia from Laurel with Sheila Warren from Encinal came up with the idea of pairing Laurel's first-graders with Encinal's fifth-graders in a buddy/mentor relationship to learn about "life skills" -- perseverance, honesty, cooperation and self-discipline. The buddy pairs will do a variety of activities together, including attending a book fair, participating in a garden project, making books and reading to each other.

** Teaching Yoga to and for Children: Oak Knoll teachers Sarah Westfall, Susan Brochin and Noelle Gonsalves will train teachers to teach yoga breathing and movement techniques to children in their K-5 classrooms so that they can begin to experience the benefits of yoga at an early age.

** Second Grade Salaries: Students will be "paid" a salary each week to perform classroom jobs such as cleaning and being class historian in this math project developed by teacher Linda Globus. Through a combination of motivation and direct instruction using money, she believes, children will become more competent in math. Play coins and bills will be used to pay salaries and bonuses. Students will be responsible for counting how much "money they have" and how much they need to buy items in the classroom store.

** Physics Phun Phriday: One specific day will be designated PH3 day for second-graders at Laurel. They will rotate through seven stations with different hands-on science experiments such as cup stacking, bungee jumping a beanie baby, and testing viscosity of household products, such as ketchup and honey. A culmination to PH3 day will be a visit to the San Francisco Exploratorium in this grant project cooked up by teacher Jennifer Byrne with Steffany Cressey, Jennifer Christensen, Linda Globus, Jeriann Hirsch, Barbara Porro and Priscilla Seely.

** Jazzing it Up: That's exactly what music specialist Richard Vaughan wants to do with this grant project for all the 195 string musicians at Oak Knoll, Encinal and Hillview. Strings, once only associated with classical music, are now becoming more popular in jazz and rock venues. Mr. Vaughan's grant will bring Bay Area jazz and rock violinist Joe Dupree to Oak Knoll and Encinal to give presentations to all string musicians in fourth and fifth grades. He will participate in Master Classes for sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders at Hillview, and work with all string students in the jazz and lab bands. The idea is to help students learn new string techniques and be inspired to continue in the string program.

** Get a Grip: This grant is designed to help kindergartners at Oak Knoll develop coordination through creative hand muscle activities, including modeling clay and using tennis balls, tweezers and scissors. Kindergarten teachers Carole Towle, Susan Hogan, Alicia Bush, Jane Bennion, Juli van Tellingen and Trish Stella came up with this idea.

Encore project

Following is the list of previous grant projects that again received a Jeanie Ritchie grant for 2003-04.

** Writer-in Residence: Librarian Sue Krumbein with seventh-grade teachers Bruce Hicks, Melissa Lima, Mike Rogers, Shoshana Rosenbaum, Teresa Sutton and Sharron Thompson wrote this grant proposal that brings Gabrielle Calvocoressi, a local writer and Stanford instructor, back to Hillview to work with teachers and seventh-graders. A binder of poems and lessons will be created during the year.

** A Biographers' Symposium: Eighth-grade teachers Nancy Haight, Lexy Keller, Carolyn Malquist, Daria Finstad, Willy Haug and Michael Kaelin will collaborate again with local writer Lisa Frederiksen Bohannon to enhance the biography writing unit. She will meet with the core team teachers and provide guidance for instruction in addition to leading a conversation during two double-period sessions with all eighth-graders.

** Ocelot: For the third year, all Encinal fifth-graders will have the opportunity to meet Laura Regan, illustrator of books with nature themes. This time, students will explore concepts of organization and voice by studying a variety of nature books and poetry in addition to Ms. Regan's. Behind this grant are Lezlie Glare with Gail Bradley, Stephanie Zanocco and Susan Preston.

** Friendly Neighborhood Helpers: Several first-grade classes at Laurel will continue to learn about community workers, such as police officers, firefighters, sanitation workers and teachers, through field trips, books and role-playing. They will present a musical about community workers. Involved in this grant are teachers Kristen Gracia, Stacei Santana and Marilyn Wong.

** Family Message Journals: Encinal third-graders and "Special Day" students learn to communicate ideas, facts and their own needs to family members through family message journals. This year, teacher Karen Strohmaier expanded the grant to include students in a special day class. Students write a message each day about something they did or learned in school and then ask for a response.

** Sharing Birds with Children: Teacher Jeriann Hirsch's grant expanded this year to include some first-graders in addition to her second-graders. Students will learn about birds by first attracting them and then by observing and tracking them. They will participate in the "Bluebird Project," using nesting boxes designed for bluebirds, and have the opportunity to participate with an early-morning bird watching club. Working on the grant are teachers Kristen Gracia and Joan Posilippo.

** El Camino -- Every Step Counts: Fourth-graders at Oak Knoll will use pedometers to monitor their mileage during a school day. They also will "walk the walk" of El Camino. Designed to promote physical activity, this repeat grant also ties into the fourth-grade social studies unit on California Missions as walkers track a virtual journey starting at Mission San Diego. Teachers involved are Sarah Westfall, Barbara Morse, Jessica Gowdy, Johnna Becker and Michelle Mazzei.

** Pioneer Living: Teacher Priscilla Seely with Steffany Cressey, Jeriann Hirsch, Jennifer Byrne, Jennifer Christensen, Linda Globus and Barbara Porro help Laurel second-graders experience pioneer living. A visit from a traveling Pioneer Living museum from Portland, Oregon, will teach children about making bread from wheat seeds, carding wool, spinning yarn and panning for gold.

Grant committee

A 13-member grant committee -- made up of nine parent volunteers (who serve a 3-year term), two teacher representatives, a foundation board member and Assistant Superintendent Jo Mitchell -- awarded the grants.

The Menlo Park-Atherton Education Foundation is a volunteer organization with the goal of maintaining and improving education in the Menlo Park City School District's four public schools. Founded in 1982 by parents and citizens concerned about the diminished levels of programs and services in public schools, the foundation has raised $9.3 million over the last two decades. To learn more about the foundation, go to www.mpaef.org.

Information for this report was compiled by the Jeanie Ritchie Grant Committee.

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