‘All gung-ho about it’

One experiment gave
pupils an idea of how
penguins stay warm.

By SEAN BARRON

VINDICATOR CORRESPONDENT

NORTH JACKSON — She doesn’t live near the Arctic Circle or have to endure temperatures of minus 20 degrees or colder, but Mackenzie Martin had fun at least looking a bit like a penguin.

“I like art and that great big blow-up thing,” said Mackenzie, a first-grader at Jackson-Milton Elementary School who made her school’s honor roll for earning straight A’s.

Mackenzie was referring to a makeshift tent made of plastic that was part of Tuesday’s Penguin Family Night at the school, 14110 Mahoning Ave. The enclosure, with cut-out penguins throughout, gave children an opportunity to read and interact with one another.

“She’s been all gung-ho about it,” added Mackenzie’s mother, Jody, who said she appreciated the work that went into the hourlong interactive program.

Mother and daughter were among roughly 250 parents and pupils in kindergarten through second grade who took part in the program, which featured more than 20 learning stations.

A variety of hands-on projects were available to reinforce numerous concepts related to science, math, art and other subjects.

The tent, as well as playing a puzzle game on a computer, were favorites for second-grader Korie Gross, 7, who came with her grandfather, Dave Snowden, and two younger brothers, J.J., 3, and Joey, 5. Watching her friends assemble their art projects gave her added enjoyment, Korie said.

Plenty of cutting, coloring, folding and tracing was going on in a room supervised by Bonnie Spencer, a classroom aide, as kids sat around several tables putting together penguin outfits and masks. In another room nearby, some youngsters heard songs with a penguin theme.

The learning centers included an estimation station in which the children received a prize for coming the closest to guessing the correct number of goldfish in a jar.

Another was called “Find Perry,” where young participants had seven penguins and read clues, eliminating one penguin at a time, to find the correct one, noted Brenda McDougal, a second-grade teacher.

The idea was to enhance youngsters’ deductive-reasoning capabilities and to teach them to read directions and use details, she explained.

In keeping with a penguin theme, Amanda Clementi, a school tutor, had pupils conduct an experiment with cold water in aluminum pans in which they placed a bare hand in one pan and a hand covered in vegetable shortening in the other. The shortening simulated blubber on penguins and gave youngsters a sense of how the aquatic birds maintain their body heat in extreme cold.

For the more computer minded, several activities using a SMARTS (Students Motivated by the Arts) board were set up. In one, Corinne Tomaino had the pupils roll a die by hand or via computer and color a portion of a penguin corresponding to the number they rolled.

Teaching the youngsters to follow simple instructions and use associations were the main points behind the activity, explained Tomaino, a kindergarten teacher.

The annual program’s main purpose was to give parents a chance to be more proactive regarding their children’s learning while allowing everyone to have fun, Principal Kirk Baker said, adding that for the last few weeks the pupils have studied penguins and will conduct grade-level reports on them.