When Calaveras Elementary School in Hollister decides to
participate in an event, that means everyone. Take the San Benito
County Fair, for instance. Students from Calaveras have prepared
nearly 500 art and craft entries for the Fair.
When Calaveras Elementary School in Hollister decides to participate in an event, that means everyone. Take the San Benito County Fair, for instance. Students from Calaveras have prepared nearly 500 art and craft entries for the Fair.
With the help of a donation from the Marron Fund through The Community Foundation for San Benito County, each student has an art entry and each class has a crafts entry, said Parent Teacher Club Treasurer Susan Maguire. Every student has chosen to participate, and parents have been supportive.
“It’s a great way to encourage the families to go to the fair,” Maguire said. “It’s a community thing.”
Each student has made an art project and every class at every grade level is working on a crafts project.
Most students completed art projects last school year. Students painted with crayons and water colors. Fourth and fifth grade classes painted scenes of sea life, self portraits and missions. Some students recreated the famous San Juan Bautista Mission bell tower in crayon.
Classes began working on their crafts entries in classes at the beginning of the 2006 school year.
First grade classes used layered paper to make sequin and star covered medallions with beaded ribbon necklaces. Jennifer Cole’s special day class papier mâchèd, painted and lacquered small bowls and made small corn husk dolls.
Other projects include trains built from recycled materials such as plastic bottles, soda cans and toilet paper rolls. One first-grade class made a colorful paper quilt with their hand prints and initials on each square. A second-grade class created a paper quilt with bright sudoku squares, the Japanese number puzzle.
Fifth grade classes made large fabric quilts, taking turns in groups to work on their section of the quilt throughout the school day. Each student used fabric paint to paint a picture on an individual square, Parent Teacher Club President Trudy Nicodemus said.
Many of the fifth graders are just learning how to sew, but some have a head start.
“The boys are just as excited as the girls,” Sharlene Graham, a fifth grade teacher said. “Their parents already taught them how to sew.”
One of Graham’s students, 10-year-old Sebastian Valencia, said his grandmother taught him how to sew.
With only a week left until the fair begins, Graham’s class is scrambling to complete the quilt.
“We are working double time,” Valencia said.
