Today on education counts, machine learning, stop motion animation with Legos, Equine Therapy in Middlebury, pre-K, learning and literacy at Studebaker Center, the Community Student Art Exhibition at the Box Factory.

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Thank you.

Welcome to Welcome to Education Counts Michiana.

I'm your host, James Summers.

Education Counts highlights programs and initiatives that are impacting how we teach, how we learn, and how we embrace education.

The program explores ideas in all education sectors.

Preschool through lifelong learning.

K-12.

post-High school and job advancement.

Training with the philosophy that we should never stop seeking knowledge.

Find additional resources at WNIT.

org and on the Education Counts Facebook page.

First up, the science of filmmaking.

Purdue Extension of Pulaski County offered an animation class to students this semester as part of the Lego movie maker Spark Club Youth Program, students learned about stop motion animation, storyboards and special effects at the Pulaski County Public Library.

Videographer Kristen Franklin.

Editor Greg Banks.

We've been doing a Lego Sparks Club animation and we've been working with stop motion animation to create movies of Legos, The Lego Movie Maker, Spark Club.

We've been able to partner with the plastic County Public Library for about the last six weeks.

So each week we come in, we talk about a different aspect of the stop motion studio app that we have on some iPads that our kids can use.

And so then they spend the next time we're here for about an hour each time.

So I'll share something with them.

And then they spend the rest of the hour building their LEGO sets and making their movies.

The Purdue Extension Office that Sam works for is right next door, so we've always had a good working relationship with them and they reached out to us and said, We have this great Lego Sparks Club.

We know you already do Legos on Monday.

What do you think about partnering up with us?

And then we offered support her in any way and she said, Oh no, I've got all the Legos, I have all the iPads, we have everything.

We just want a spot to do it.

So they came over and she did everything.

Well, what's something you learn throughout this kind of work that they need to make?

They knew how to work this stuff.

Okay, I did.

Yes.

This program was developed by a couple of educators, Sam McCullum and Rebecca Wilkins in southern Indiana.

And so they led it virtually back in 2021.

And they used this curriculum, the Lego Make Your Own Movie curriculum that they found and shared that with educators across the state.

And so we picked it up and I've offered it a few times as an in-person option.

We are learning how to do stop motion animation.

So that way we can improve our skills on how to use this camera in case.

So that way we are a lot better.

And that way we can improve our skill.

Each week we kind of cover a different topic.

So the very first week I just come in and say, Here's the Legos, here's the iPads with the app, check it out, try it out, see what you can figure out.

Through that, they may come up with questions of, Oh, it's really fast.

How do I slow it down?

And then I can show them some of the different aspects.

But kids really love to just learn on their own.

And especially with technology, if they play around with it, they can figure it out a lot of times easier than what us adults can.

I describe it as a really easy program to do, just starting out.

They can do it with Legos or pretty much anything to make it move almost magically around your area.

Set stop motion studio is a good option for that screen time.

We don't want our kids to be on the screens too much, so I think it's a positive way to make that connection to technology.

And they are spending a lot of time building with the Legos and moving the Legos to take their pictures and stop motion studio.

So the amount of time that they're spending on the app, even though we were here for an hour, was would be a lot less time because they're taking different shots.

They're building their Legos, they're building their storyboards, they're interacting with each other.

So I think it's a good use of technology.

Our first step is to plan with a storyboard and create a story to then be made into a movie.

A storyboard is a process of making a movie.

The filmmaker has one director, so most of the people have it.

So that way you know what to do.

So that way you don't forget.

And that way you can practice your part.

Need slowed down.

One week we talked about different parts of movies such as characters, plot settings.

One week we talked about beginning and end credits and what those look like.

So they each had little papers they could use and put that they had directed the movie, give their movie a title.

So those are just some of the weeks of what we did.

My movie was about kind of a day in life, about someone working in a pizza parlor.

I really enjoyed silos, pizza parlor.

There was a lot of detail to that one.

Some of the others had a lot of good sound effects.

I think it was neat that Joe incorporated commercials into his.

That was something we didn't even talk about.

He just came up with on his own.

So it's really neat to see them kind of take whatever ideas they have and run with it and do whatever they want.

I believe it was about a tire because I got inspiration from cars and he was just driving around just warmly.

What a what a car.

We normally do just a little bit crazier.

And I saw a pizza Lego piece and just started building maybe three or four hour sessions to make it in maybe ten or 15 minutes.

To think of an idea.

I really enjoyed that, but I better be on the other side of the camera acting.

We were just watching our movies that everyone made and what we so we spent six Mondays working on all of them and after that we popped some popcorn, which we should just make one more and just one more.

And then we just played with some Legos and then we made that.

We made some extra changes and then we just got them on the big screen.

And tonight families were invited.

So it really did feel like a movie premiere because they didn't know what was going to happen.

So that was really exciting and I think all the kids were really excited and proud to show their animations.

Discover more about stop motion animation at WNIT.org.

Equine therapy.

The connection between a student and a horse can be therapeutic on many levels.

Stable grounds in Middlebury allows students to work with horses, handle horses, and participate in guided activities that build and develop positive life skills for better mental health and balance.

Segment producer Shanthini Ode.

Our mission at Stable Grounds is to help students with mental health struggles such as grief, anxiety, depression, using horses and donkeys in equine psychotherapy.

Equine therapy is where we do activities in the arena which are ground based, so we don't do any of riding on horses like other places, but is ground based where we have activities such as obstacles that the kids set up and then we use a horse or a donkey to go through those obstacles.

And then we talk about how that relates to their life, whether it's at home, at school, the how how the arena is actually a metaphor to whatever they're struggling with.

And then we talk about strategies to help them and things that they can do to help themselves.

So what makes this a little bit different than in-office therapy is you're active and you're doing things and you're moving, but you're also in relationship with the horses and the horses are non-judgmental.

So they don't care what your parents do for a living or what your grades are or what kind of shoes you have on.

They're just experiencing you with what you bring that day.

They can't fix what's wrong and they're not even sure what's wrong.

And they come here in a few sessions and the teachers already see a difference.

It's beautiful to watch and it's magical to me.

It's a miracle.

They're learning how to do it for their life.

They're learning how to deal with their feelings and their emotions for life and providing we're providing them with strategies.

And it's what we need and our community supports it.

It's taking the stigma away from mental health services and helping yourself.

We are a partnership with Middlebury Community Schools, which means that we serve Middlebury Community Schools students Monday through Friday, and we serve all the way from kindergarten, all the way up to seniors.

We were a bus throughout the entire school day where students come and go from school to stable grounds for counseling sessions.

It's just a miraculous environment and it's so much different from a office sitting across from a desk.

It's just not the same.

EGALA is the certification that Rebecca Snyder and I both have that certification, which means that it's Equine Growth and Learning Association and we're certified to be equine specialist, which means when we're in the arena, we're also watching for safety with the student and with the horses.

And we're also mental health therapists, the feelings and those things.

We're not just talking about them.

They're feeling them in the moment.

Whether it's sadness or frustration or how to get along with the horse, then we can correlate that to what is happening in the building, and then we kind of connect to that and give them some goals or things to work on for the week.

And then they are bused back over to their building and go back to class.

We're in a partnership with a school and so that's made it very unique in that we can offer these sessions for free to students and families and and give them the help that the really asking for it.

What I've seen it's changed life literally.

I've seen parents sobbing with the beauty of what's happened to their children.

I've talked to principals who've been sobbing because it's changed the lives of the kids that they saw that were struggling so much at all different age levels.

And I've seen the children change the way they interact with each other and the classroom changes.

I love seeing kids make connections to stuff and then take it back to the building and apply it and be able to like, feel and know some of those metaphors.

It just sticks different than just words.

Learn more about equine therapy at WNIT.org.

Early Literacy.

Studebaker Center in South Bend held its first annual literacy night for pre-K families.

The event was a way to celebrate the end of pre-K through interactive, fun, learning activities and storytimes, each student left with a free dinner and books.

The event was also an opportunity to connect with parents on how to further aid their children with literacy and all things learning and growing story shot and edited by Nicholas Ramirez.

Sure, we should know if you're happy.

This event was brought up by Miss Amanda Jackson, the principal at Studebaker and myself, and a way to celebrate the end of pre-K, essentially for our pre-K families that have attended this year and to celebrate their learning, their growth and to be fun, as well as a piece to connect with parents so that they would be able to think about how they can continue to assist their child, not just in literacy, but in all things learning and growing.

The hope after they leave is not only to use the materials that we've shared with them, including the four new books that went home with every child tonight to encourage them to read.

We also have a pre-K interactive library in each of the pre-K classrooms across the city.

We're sending home books sort of checked out to each child every week so that they will continue to engage in reading.

And then that's why the Central County Library was here, was in order to think about what they have to offer families, as well as unity to offer more learning and growing opportunities and how kids can continue to learn even at the grocery store or things as simple as just a conversation that by them having to stretch, they are also learning.

I think that coming through COVID and just coming back around to being out and interacting more, we've got the littles, we've got kids that are four years old.

And so they were kind of secluded.

And so getting back with kids, hearing stories, really having the books in hand and holding books, having somebody read the books with you and moving away from the video so that you can have that opportunity to talk and share, build more vocabulary and answer questions and enrich those stories with the child is really, really important.

And so it's kind of almost like there was a little bit of a pause.

And so now we're back in back in again, building that love for books and and sharing how important it is to enjoy reading.

So we looked for community partners that had a focus on literacy since we were having the book fair.

So we started off our with our songs tonight at this pre-K festival to ensure that parents got to see their children have learned so much this year and grown.

So they formed these songs, which are a letter in number based and they, they learned them and they enjoyed them.

And then we were able to send them to the stations which, you know, WNIT PBS has an awesome learning opportunity for students.

So being able to ensure that families are aware of what, what they offer an opportunity for the Central Public County Library to also show what they have to offer.

And then we had the kindergarten station where we're getting our students and their parents on board for what's necessary for kindergarten, making sure they understand that even though if they were in pre-K, they still are going to have to register.

So some steps they have to take and to get them on board for kindergarten round up, which is coming up in April so that they'll visit the schools and make their decisions.

We had the face painting, which was really just a fun piece, but while they were getting their face painted, they were also getting to hear a story.

So there was still reading involved.

We had, you know, big perm from U93 here.

And he he was able to read and he's, you know, a famous person in South Bend.

So, again, tying that to the book, this up and Education Foundation was able to purchase every child that took a check, a boom boom book, that big per read.

So again, that's one of the books, Scholastic Book Fair.

They each child got three scholastic books and then chick, chick, a boom boom was donated.

So everyone went home with four books that came today.

So again, focus is literacy, but it's also family engagement.

The research says that early learning capacity is developed by a child's fifth birthday, so their capacity to learn 85% is set by their fifth birthday.

So that comes from the Indiana Youth Institute.

So we know the importance of the profound importance of early learning for children to be successful.

So we developed the pre-K program in 21, 22, we opened three pre-K at three different buildings, three pre-K classrooms.

This is separate from the Marquette Montessori, which is an entire Montessori building that has their own pre-K, and then Snap Studebaker has a special needs and abilities program, but they didn't have a traditional pre-K class.

So we added a traditional pre-K class here.

We started at Marshall and we started at Misael.

That was our initial year.

This year we added five more for a total of seven different buildings that host pre-K outside of Marquette.

And we have grown, our classes are full.

It's a half day program.

So students, we get to serve as many as 32 students and a day, half in the morning, half in the afternoon.

And we have a certified teacher and a paraprofessional that's been trained for at least 30 hours in early childhood that are in a classroom every day.

So there's lots of high level engagement along with just we know kids can learn through play.

So we are using curriculum that mirrors what they will see in kindergarten in regards to Wilson Foundations and HAGERTY phoneme phonemic there are things that we are building into their pre-K curriculum that's going to help them be even more successful as they move through South Bend schools.

In terms of quality pre-K, there's been deserts in the South Bend area because there's just not enough programs to go around that are not of high cost.

So Dr. Cummings decided with the referendum that we could certainly reach out and try to start building that foundation and ensuring more children were able to receive that early childhood education so that we're building their capacity for school.

In school, and we're feeding them through this up in schools, showing them that reading is a skill, that's a lifelong skill is really important.

But we were anxious to put books in the hands of kids because COVID put us behind as a nation academically.

So what can we do to try to help children get caught up?

And that was part of our quest with with pre-K is offering a foundational piece that we can also share with parents on this family literacy event to try to encourage them to read themselves, read with their child, and just explore learning.

You can learn everything even just outside.

Every moment is a teachable moment.

Find out more about the benefits of pre-K. Reading at WNIT.org.

Outreach through art as a young artist, showing your work in public spaces in a professional atmosphere alongside peers is an invaluable experience.

The Community Student Art Exhibition, hosted at the Box Factory for the Arts, is a space for art students around Berrien County to get recognition for their projects and creations.

This is a way for their artwork to leave the school buildings and create community engagement organization.

This is the 2023 Marion County Community Student Elementary Art Exhibit and it's here at the Box factory.

It's been going on for a number of years.

This is just a place to showcase student work, elementary student work and we do have a few awards to give out and we do a participation award and we also choose one student from each school for the community award.

One of the things that we've established the last maybe eight or nine years has been a collaboration category.

So that's when either two or more kids work together to create a piece of art.

And normally it's a whole class.

So we have several really wonderful collaboration pieces in the show this year, and so it really shows a lot of teamwork.

Kids are working together and having a common goal in mind.

So I think that's that's a whole nother element.

Besides doing individual artwork, what is the collaboration category?

So we really try to recognize that and and it's always amazing to see, you know, what, what comes up with that when they get to be excited for each other and excited for their peers.

I think it just brings brings that to a whole nother level.

And it's so amazing to see when that happens that kids are so naturally wanting to get excited for others and to celebrate each other.

But getting their artwork into a space out into the community just provides them with another opportunity to display their artwork.

And again, it gets the community in to see a student's artwork.

So it kind of breaks that barrier down between the schools and the community and really collaborates and mashes the two together for that celebration.

As far as like the work that's in this show, I can tell that the art teachers have really been pushing more like contemporary work and there's just so much creativity in this particular exhibition.

I was a little blown away when when that when we started hanging stuff.

It's it's a really neat show.

There's a lot of kind of interesting, like boundary pushing with like pop art and modern art and, and pieces like that.

And you can tell that the kids were really able to kind of like let loose and make some really cool stuff this year.

It's important for students to be pushed outside of their comfort zone.

If we only keep art inside of the walls that it's created, it can only go so far.

So for me, it's twofold.

I think that it's important for students to be able to show their artwork and have that space to celebrate all the hard work that they've put in.

But on the other side of it, it's a fantastic opportunity to see what other students in other schools are creating and also be able to talk about and converse about artwork and see it out in the public spaces.

And after seeing something hosted like this, I have more students that go out and look for art and other places and it kind of sparks that little bit of curiosity, and then they're going to get ideas or they're going to maybe have dialogs with other kids and there's lots of exchange and learning going on.

I have a fifth grade student, Gage Helms, who has earned first place in the digital and videography category.

It was about like robot people battling and there was a shark knuckles from Sonic the Hedgehog and shadow robot.

When we do the judging, we're really looking at like the kid's hand, like how much did they have and how much did they participate in making the work?

Like we look at color composition, but like what we're really looking for the work to kind of say something.

I'm just so proud of all of my students.

My favorite part about being an art teacher is encouraging my students to take risks and to be creative and problem solving their art making.

And hopefully that just encourages them to be more confident and testing out things as a learner and as a student.

So I like my art class because we do like a lot of fun projects and I like Michelle because she's nice and she helps us to our art projects.

We're working on mosaics where we have a picture and we put shapes out and I want to do more of that.

I think that this is just such a great opportunity for schools and community to come together to celebrate the arts.

Check out WNIT.org for more information on all of these stories.

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The success of every student matters.

Education Counts Michiana is underwritten by Pokagon Band of Potawatomi Investing in Education and Economic Development for centuries, supporting the past, current and future development of the Michiana region community foundation of Elkhart County inspire good.

Kosciusko County Community Foundation where donor dreams shine The Dekko Foundation Community Foundation of Saint Joseph County, Crossroads United Way serving Elkhart, Lagrange and Noble Counties United Way of Saint Joseph County Marshall County Community Foundation Ready to Grow Saint Joe Early Childhood Coalition and a Gift by Elmer and Dolores Teppe.

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