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Classroom Grant Updates

We are WILD about monsters at Lincoln and Newell!

Thanks to a GIPS Foundation Classroom Grant, students at Newell and Lincoln Elementary Schools brought their imaginations to life by creating clay monsters inspired by the book “Where the Wild Things Are”. Over 535 kindergarten through fifth-grade students participated in this hands-on project, led by artist-in-residence Nancy Fairbanks. Fairbanks taught students about clay and guided them through the process of working with it, encouraging creativity and self-expression as they crafted their own unique monsters.

This project “supports our Positive Supports goal, offering a meaningful outlet for creativity in the classroom,” said Principal Nate Balcom. By connecting literature with art, the activity not only enriched students’ learning but also provided a fun and engaging way to foster self-confidence and collaboration in a supportive environment.

If this story has sparked an idea for YOUR school or classroom, learn more here.


Read KSNB Local 4's coverage of this project here or below.

Artist teaches clay lesson at Lincoln Elementary school

Local4’s ‘What’s Cool in Your School?’ segment is sponsored by Hastings College

By Madison Smith
Published: Jan. 20, 2025 at 12:08 PM CST

GRAND ISLAND, Neb. (KSNB) - A surprise guest awaited students at Lincoln Elementary school in Grand Island on Thursday. Artist Nancy Fairbanks welcomed students in for a special clay lesson.

“Working with clay is a great medium for kids,” said Fairbanks. “It’s a good way of self expression that they’re not allowed in most of the curriculum that they do. It also helps develop their fine motor skills, it allows their creativity to come out and the sensory awareness.”

The students created clay monsters based off of the book ‘Where the Wild Things Are,’ which is in their reading curriculum.

“Any school I go into I try to tie it into some different lesson or study that they’re working on and they have studied the book or reviewed the book,” said Fairbanks. “So they know what we’re talking about, so when I mention monsters, visions pop into their head and so they’re already primed for that. And it can show them how art is related to every type of curriculum that kids go through.”

Mitchell Kresnik is the P.E. teacher at Lincoln Elementary, and said his kids' creativity amazes him every day.

“It’s something unique to them, it’s not something they always get to do,” said Kresnik.“When they get to experience something like this, you just see their creativity come out. You see their excitement to do the project, and it’s an awesome experience for our kids.”

All of this was made possible by a classroom grant from the Grand Island Public School Foundation.

“We have teachers that think innovative, exciting teaching elements,” said Kari Hooker-Leep, Executive Director Grand Island Public School Foundation. “The classroom grants is just those kids thinking outside of the box. Getting exciting curriculum and education that’s not basic. Not that basic is bad, but we want to expand their innovative minds.”

Fairbanks has visited several other schools in Grand Island, but her lessons aren’t exclusive to central Nebraska.

“I am an artist in residence for the Nebraska Arts Council so I go to Kindergarten through college, all across the state, so I’ve been coast to coast in Nebraska,” said Fairbanks. “I’ve been out in the western half in the Sandhills, I’ve done Omaha, I’ve done Southeast, Northwest, the whole range. So I get about.”

The GIPS Foundation hopes that these special opportunities provided by classroom grants will create lifelong memories for the students.

“I was talking to a teacher the other day and I said ‘you remember your parents, you did something and you handed it to them and they still have it in their house today?’ That’s what we’re hoping for these students,” said Hooker-Leep. “That that memory is built now and they can look back and go ‘remember in first grade, I built an animal, a wild creature?’ and they still have that physically in their mind and in their memory and in their hand.”

 

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