February 6, 2009
E-mail from Sheree O'Donnell
Dear Leah,
Such a fun day! My friend Rachael was visiting for Christmas. Armed with lots of paint and paper, we headed to Elma. The new classroom had been completed meaning the children had the library back, except it did not look much like a library! So our idea was to encourage them to decorate it, to get creative and make their mark, hoping it would give them a real sense of ownership of the space ... and be fun!
Initially they were reluctant, very unsure, but curious! Some of the students told me they had never painted before.
As you can see by the end of the day everyone was involved, including the teachers!
I'm not sure if I have already told you about the boy who was too shy to help, but took some paper and sat in the corner with a reading book. I kept an eye on him and saw that he began to copy a picture from the book. His English is not strong but one of the other children told me that it was his favorite book because he loves the squirrel in it. It was really moving. I gave him a notepad and some pencils to take home and practice his drawing. You can see from the pictures that he's really good!
After Christmas, I returned to find that they had added to the original "abc" painting and drawn some other pictures to hang around the room which I thought was just wonderful! Exactly as we had hoped!
Sheree
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