Every few weeks, my job requires that I organize pictures and information for a special section. This week the Student Express filled with student written essays, their weather pictures and coloring pages overflows my desk. I sorted the entries into categories and prepared the entries for judging.
I always enjoy seeing the differences in children’s abilities. Some scribble across the page, disregarding the lines, using one or two colors. Others precisely place differing colors in every space. A creative few go beyond the drawn picture and add their own flourishes – a fan over the desk of the student drawing cartoons, a light or a big yellow sun. Other News-Times employees choose the overall winners for the coloring page. Then we go through the same process for the third-grade weather pictures.
As always the variety of ways children draw tornadoes and sunny days intrigues me. A sun dominates the page with a big, friendly smile. A tornado swirls across the page with black dark colors carrying various bits and pieces of trees, cars and furniture.
This year look for more of these weather pictures on our Between Editions weblog at http://www.eldoradonews.com/Blog/category/news/.
Second graders record their recipes for making cookies, PBJ sandwiches, pizza or chicken. Each recipe provides a child’s eye view of how food comes to the table. Those from open-a-package homes find cooking simple: Open the cookie dough, put it on the sheet and bake it. Those who have helped their mothers measure and stir try to record the more complex process. Many capture the process quite well, but it is difficult for second graders to see or understand everything done in the kitchen. They all know, however, how the recipe ends, “Eat and enjoy!”
Fourth- and fifth-grade students take up the challenge to draw an ad for a local business. Easy to do when the business sells cars, furniture or food – difficult when they provide a service which the students have never encountered. If it were not for the generosity of these advertisers who enjoy seeing how children portray their business, the News-Times would not be able to produce an annual Student Express.
Sixth-graders keep the newspaper employees humble. They tell us how they use the newspaper: “We roll it up to spank the dog. We use it in the bird cage.” Some actually read and study it in their classes or use it for math problems or to understand the political process.
When it came time for the seventh-graders to write about community happenings, the El Dorado Promise still held many student’s attention. Others touched on the rides and fun they had at the fair, the activities at MusicFest and watching the Christmas parade.
I think I had the most fun this year reading the student’s responses to the news article about a mother who found booze in the car she bought for her 19 year-old son’s car, three weeks after she bought it for him to use at college. She sold it with an eye catching ad. Originally, I prepared to write a column about that story. Instead, I asked the eighth-graders for their thoughts on the original news brief. Their responses varied from total agreement with the mother, to seeing both sides of the issue, to absolute disagreement and scolding the mother for selling the car. More than one took it personally, “my mom would have torn me up, if she had caught me with booze under the seat.”
The project is huge. Every department at the News-Times works on it before it is published. What you will see in Student Express is a glimpse into the lives of area children and their capabilities. Look for it Tuesday along with our weekly Education pages.