By LAURA BROOKHART / Community Columnist

Never do I visit Helena Elementary School without totally appreciating the WOW factor of the many creative learning and art projects lining every hall.

On one wall, this week, were self-portraits that kindergarteners had drawn to illustrate how many teeth each has lost to date. Harrison had not lost any teeth, and his smiling face was filled with healthy pink gums and 26 teeth that reached up to his blue eyes.

Maian’s freckled face with heart-shaped nose indicated she had already lost four teeth.

Miss Harleigh came by as I was admiring the wall where students had taken the shapes of the three numbers that make up 100 and used them to create a drawing.

“What are you doing?” she asked me. “And how old are you?” She told me she was 5 and she would like to have her photo taken, posing very sweetly for me.

Her class also had a silhouette photo of every child along with an explanation of their shadow. Todd, who obviously gave this some thought, had written:

“When I play bsbol, my shadow does dus thet.

“When I play fottball my shadow dus thet.

“When I play with my sitr, my shadow dus thet.

“When I play with my dad, my shadow dust thet.”

Another class had been studying President Obama. Addison wrote that our president “lestens good; likes to claen up the hole world; gos to a lot of meetings.”

Luka wrote, “Dear Brock Obama, I wus wundrary if you wud cum to Halna Alubamu.”

Mrs. Burk’s kindergarten classroom had worked on a magnificent project — an illustrated retelling of The Princess and the Pea — that reached from floor to ceiling. Abby, Grace, Kolson, Haley, Audrey and Maci signed their work. Their Princess and the Pea rendition progresses true to Andersen’s original fairy tale, but I was amazed to see that it includes punctuation that many high school students probably do not use correctly.

That just goes to show there is always something to be learned, even just passing through the halls of elementary school.

 

Laura Brookhart can be reached by email at labro16@yahoo.com.