Trailwood School's Jayhawk City
Laurie Bottiger, CUBE, directs GeoBlock activity.
Ready to move in
Performance brings back memories of early civil rights movement
Kim Feathers presents key to the city to Mayor Stanton
A PTA program called Art Smart was the catalyst for the entire student body at Trailwood School to participate in Box City. Headed by Kim Feathers, art teacher, and with support from Susan Strobel, Art Smart Co-chair, and Sarah Stanton, PTA President, the year-long Box City made its debut in March at an all-school open house.
Activities during the year included designing the city with a pre-activity exercise using Geo-Blocks and assisted by KC's local program coordinator Laurie Bottiger, and design professionals. Mapping the design, building the structures (each grade has a specialty) and creating the city skyline backdrop (the third grade music program) were all a part of the multi-disciplinary activity. An "Eye Spy" quiz helped visitors look for special things in the city. A ribbon cutting and a creative musical program highlighting the roots of Kansas City jazz made the open house even more special.
Box City is an event that brings together all of the students for problem solving and decision-making. It also brings together all school and community members to support the project. Architectural drafting students, former Trailwood students, from a near-by high school helped with mapping; PTA members and individual parents were also involved. Summary: when CUBE gets a call from a grandmother extolling the project, you know that the idea is a good one. Thanks to all the participants at Trailwood for making Jayhawk City so special for so many people.
Contact information:
Kim Feathers (TWFeath@smsd.org)
Susan Stroble (sstrobel@kc.rr.com)
Laurie Bottiger (lbottiger@speds.org)
