LES students take part in International Day of Peace

On the morning of Sept. 21 Kesha

Metzler was busy lining the front lawn of Lakeside Elementary

School with 387 pinwheels that the students at the school created

for the Pinwheels for Peace Project to celebrate the International

Day of Peace.

The project links millions of people

together from all over the world who create and display pinwheels

on the same day in recognition of the need for world peace.

Metzler, who teaches art classes for

Lakeside students in kindergarten through fifth-grade through the

Artist -in-Residence Program funded by a PTA grant, decided to use

the pinwheel project as the inaugural project for the school year

because of its simplicity and larger purpose.

“I thought it would work well because

it’s a short month and it is the start of school and everyone is

getting settled in,” Metzler said. “I needed a short project that

we could do and it coincided well with 9/11 and the International

Day of Peace. I thought it would be a good kick-off and that it

would be fun to have an outdoor installment that all the kids could

look at and be proud of.”

The pinwheels were not only on display

for the students to see on the International Day of Peace. Metzler

took them out of the ground that evening to protect them from the

elements and then put them back up the following day for the

school’s open house so the students could share the installment

with their families.

“They loved it. They thought it was

really cool to see their work displayed,” Metzler said of the

students. “A lot of them were surprised at how small 400 pinwheels

looked on the lawn. They were really proud to show their parents

(Thursday) night at parents night. It was neat to see the kids

searching through the field of pinwheels to show their parents

theirs. It was a neat element for me.”

Another fun aspect about the project

was that every student in the school did the same project, though

at different times. Most of the art classes Metzler will teach to

the students this year will vary greatly from grade to grade.

“It’s a fun project too because it was

for the whole school, Metzler said. “All of the kids could do it

from kindergarten through fifth grade. I thought it was a neat

thing that they could all do together before we start splitting off

into different projects at the different grade levels.”

She said the students not only enjoyed

the fact that the whole school was working on the same project, but

also that they were part of a global effort.

“They thought it was really cool that

they weren’t the only ones that were doing this project, but that

the same project was happening not just across the country but

around the world,” Metzler said. “I think they thought it was

pretty wild that they were a part of something so big.”

Although a count has not been made

public for this year’s Pinwheels for Peace, last year around 3.5

million people around the world took part in the project.

The Lakeside students started their

project by discussing creative expression, the idea of peace and

even learning to say the word peace in different languages.

“First of all I talked to the kids

about how we all express ourselves differently and as artists we’ll

all express ourselves differently,” Metzler said.

She then had the students create two

pinwheels. The first pinwheel they made was for Pinwheels for

Peace.

“I asked them to decorate a pinwheel

with what they thought and felt about world peace,” Metzler said.

“Some were decorated with American flags but they talked about how

we would have over population if it wasn’t for war. It was really

interesting to see how the kids expressed themselves and what their

ideas are on this topic, especially in the higher-up grades.”

Those pinwheels were laminated and put

outside. They were asked to decorate a second pinwheel in a way

that expressed who they were as a person and those were put up

around their classrooms.

“The kids really expressed themselves

well,” Metzler said. “Several of the kids really took it to heart.

There were a lot of thoughts that went into the journaling that

went on the pinwheels and the artistic work that went into

them.”