The cost of paint, clay, art paste, and more from Dick Blick is $1193, including shipping and <a target="new" href="http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm" onclick="g_openWindow('http://www.donorschoose.org/html/fulfillment.htm', 300, 800, 'fulfillwindow');return false;">fulfillment</a>.
Last year we had our first Multicultural Celebration of hosting countries, visiting other classrooms with our passports in hand. I would like to continue this activity again this year.
My art class times were lowered from 45 minutes twice a week to half hour periods twice a week. Therefore it will take longer to produce quality work from my students for this coming year.
I am chairman of our Multicultural Committee. I would like to have art supplies to enrich this program. These supplies will be used according to the adopted country of study. Like last year, we will focus on arts and crafts styles, cultural food, costumes, and dances. Classroom teachers will also do more in-depth study of economics, language, social studies, and architecture.
Last year we studied Ireland, China, Mexico, Germany, Italy, West Africa and Greece. With my background of the visual arts, I designed many grade level lessons for each country using the art medium of clay. I need to purchase clay and many colors of glazes and overglazes for the clay projects. Because of the time period limit, I will change some primary classes to paper mache medium. I tried making homemade paper mache paste, but it didn't work as well because of spoilage. The purchased paste comes in a powder form, and one box will make 1 gallon on paste and won't spoil. All 18 classes will participate in the Multicultural Program. That will be over 350 students in grade kindergarten through 6th.
Our school is located near the southwest part of Indianapolis. Our school is 100% free lunch. The majority of the students have parents who are poor Appalachian workers. We have about 5% minority students, 2% Spanish-speaking. The majority of the parents rent homes in our school area. We have lost over 100 students in the past 5 years because of home owners not repairing their homes and renting parents moving elsewhere to better housing. Our school's corporate sponsors are Kroger stores, Eli Lilly, and Indiana Starch. They have paired up with Habitat for Humanity in building new homes in vacant lots, but thy can't keep up with the demand. Our high schools have the highest % of drop outs of students. They see no need in getting a higher education, and go into the lower income job market. Our superintendent, and our school board are initiating new programs of "hope" for many of our schools to change this aura of "hopelessness."
I would like the supplies of clay, glazes, overglazes, paper mache, tissue paper, and some tools so that all the students can have a positive experience in our Multicultural program. When students experience positive lessons that carry over into their family, then we can have that feeling of "hope". At the end of the long day of using our handmade passports, all student will have traveled to each grade level to experience another country. We have an hour program with students performing oratories, songs, dances, and slide shows to their families, friends, and our corporate sponsors in attendance.
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