Category Archives: 2018 Sp K.A.R.E.

K.A.R.E worked with Glenside Elementary school on the “Only One You” service project. Overall, it was three different groups who were tasked with this project. The Only One You project is based on a book by Linda K. It is about a fish who ventures out own his own and finds his own path in this great big world. This project has a message component in it that tells the children to be themselves. It reminds the kids to find their own path in life and to stay true to themselves. This message is an important one because in life kids grow up and sometimes lose track of themselves surrounded by many life obstacles. Instilling this positive message in their live can be great in the long term. For the service projects, kids will paint rocks with different colors of a fish. At the end, the rocks will be spread out in the garden in a river like shape. Also there were signs with quotes from the book.

In the beginning, K.A.R.E had an initial meeting with the Vice Principal Karen Houck about the many service projects at Glenside. There, she told us the many positive things that other students have done in the past and what students can do this year. Karen Houck also went over clearances in able to be interact with the children. K.A.R.E proceeded with our tasks and kept in contact with Karen and got our clearances. There was some confusion overall between the three different groups and the art teachers at Glenside elementary school. The “Only One You” project had many different components in it to achieve success. First the rocks needed to be primed, then the rocks needed to be painted by the kids from many different grades, finally at the end the rocks needed to be sealed with a final coat to ensure longevity. The components that became mixed up was the communication factor of the project. Later, we found out the Karen Houck worked between two different schools so she was not physically there to inform the art teachers about everything. Also there were communication barriers with the other groups as well. Overall, we figured everything out and worked together cohesively to make the “Only One You” project successful.

In addition, K.A.R.E worked at Earth Day at Penn State Berks. Collectively over the course of the day our team helped the kids paint the rocks and assisted the kids on a tour of the agriculture center. This project as whole was wonderful and we were glad to be a part of this project.

On Friday, April 13th, 2 of our 3 members, along with two other teams, attended Glenside to help the 1st graders paint their rocks.  It did not go as planned, rocks were missing and there were only 23 rocks to be painted.  Due to this, we had one of the 1st grade classes partner up with the one Pre-K class and had two students collaboratively paint one rock together.  Even though it did not go as planned we were able to get some rocks painted and ended up taking the rocks that were painted with us so that we could spray them with a clear coat.  The clear coat of paint will help to keep the acrylic paint that was used to paint the rocks stay in place and not wash off in the rain.

We had our meeting with Ms. Houck along with the other groups that will be partnering with Glenside.  She gave us a little tour of the school and explained each project to us in greater detail than what was on the sign up sheet.  She told us that she wanted us to decide what project our group wanted to do by February 2nd.

K.A.R.E decided that we were going to partake in the Only One You project.  Each of the children in the school is going to paint a rock and that rock signifies that there are no duplicates of designs and that there is only one of them.  After the rocks are doing being painted we are going to lay them in the form of a river in the school’s garden.  We will also be creating signs to put at the beginning and end of the river of rocks, the signs will read “There is only one you in this great big world . . . Make it a better place.”

The 5th graders will be coming to PSU Berks on April 20th for Earth Day, they will be doing a couple of activities that pertain to Earth Day and will also be painting their rocks then.  K.A.R.E will be in attendance to help with the activities.