By Shelby Stewart-Soldan
ssoldan@mihomepaper.com
Brandon Twp.— Brandon Middle School Fine Arts Instructor Jody Daniels and Harvey-Swanson Elementary second grade teacher Tina Olsen teamed up their students once again for an art project focused on kindness.
“We always write narratives, non-fiction, and opinion pieces,” said Olsen. “So we were super excited to write a fiction story with a kindness theme.”
Olsen’s second grade students all penned stories about kindness, then they met with the seventh grade Art Design students to create a book based on their stories. On May 21, the elementary students walked to BMS and were gifted the books in the cafeteria. The elementary students returned the favor with hand-made thank-you cards.
“We tried to line up the best artists with the students that were more prolific at writing,” said Daniels. “This way they possibly had the skill set to maintain the amount of work required. I must say, some of the stories that were written were very impressive and lengthy. This also created a challenge for my seventh graders. Many students took their work home to work on it, not the norm for most art assignments.”
The seventh grade students, prior to creating the books, met with the second graders to talk about their stories and collaborate on other characters that were written into the stories.
“My students loved the challenge of creating an outcome for the second graders,” said Daniels. “The majority of students actually went out of their way to do their best work. I think my students were as excited as the second graders to finally be able to show their handiwork to their authors.”
Olsen said her students were excited to see their work, with some students telling her they were so happy they cried, and some saying how amazed they were with how their books turned out.
Her class also said they learned how much time and energy and care the middle school students put into their books.
“I feel like this supports the district’s efforts to support reading and writing,” said Daniels. “It was a lot of work, but all worth it.”