GREENFIELD — The clay wasn’t holding together and the South American pot had fallen apart. Nonetheless the third-grader knew what to do: call the broken clay an ancient artifact.
As families passed through the halls of the Discovery School at Four Corners Monday afternoon, they discovered artifacts and artistic endeavors of their children celebrating the diversity around the world.
“It’s great for them to see how things are different and the world is a really big place, and to see how things are done differently in other places,” third-grade teacher Sarah Furgalack said. “It’s different but it’s OK.”
The four corners of the world were covered in the annual showcase this year, funded by a special artist-in-residence grant. The special education program ACE ventured to Antarctica, Kindergarten went to Australia, first grade explored Asia, second grade traveled to Africa, third grade headed down to South America and fourth grade took a trip to Europe, while everyone highlighted their backyard of North America.
The special STARS grant, from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, helped students take their learning out of the textbooks and bring some more tangible educational opportunities.
“Just like in life, it’s not in this one isolated space and room,” Principal Jake Toomey said. “It’s all connected. They do a good job of pulling together and doing that.”
Artist-in-residence and Discovery School parent Sarah Ahearn Bellemare helped the students put together a map of the world full of over 600 animals and fun facts filling the chalk-colored ocean, sewn equator and colored in countries.
“I’ve been having dreams about all these little pieces of animals and landmarks and flaps so it’s really great to see people interact with it, because that really was the idea of it,” Ahearn Bellemare said, as she watched dozens of families flood through the school’s door at a successful event that originally was scheduled for Friday but postponed because of the pending snow storm.
The map was prominently displayed in the school’s hallway. It will be a useful resource for when the Discovery School cycle’s back to this year’s theme of “continents.” In the past two years, the artist-in-residence helped put together a program of performance-art.
When Ahearn Bellemare showed up to school — she had spent the past month, four days a week coming in thanks to the grant — she would always have requests to work on the project.
“‘Can we go work on the map? Can we help you can we help you?’” Ahearn Bellemare said the kids at the school would ask her.
It was particularly great for Ahearn Bellemare, who has been an artist-in-residence before when she lived in New York state and in Easthampton, because her daughter goes to the school. It was also a fun side project for the artist while she cared for her younger child at home.
“It was a nice little job to do and then I’d go back to being a mom,” Ahearn Bellemare said.
Kids were excited to show off their hard work to their parents too. Some fourth-graders dressed up too after choosing a role to play from one of the countries they worked on.
Fourth-grader Jackson Petrin, who worked on a project on Greece, dressed up as a god of magic named Majeera, who expressed his appreciation for the month-long learning opportunity and the day’s events allowing him to wear a nifty cape and carry a sorcerer’s walking stick.
“Doing it with all my friends and having fun,” was Petrin’s favorite part.
Other kids had fun trying new foods at the showcase event Monday. Students tried items like a German apple cake and Greek potatoes that school specialist’s Linda Tiley and Trish Wood offered up.
“I think they were very adventurous,” Wood said. “Some of them were like ‘hmm, I’m not sure, Greek roasted potatoes. But hey I’ll give it a try.’”
The food was based on a community-formed $10 cookbook that they were selling to benefit the school’s gardening fund. They hope to expand the grazing garden with its blueberry bushes. The dishes were all from families and staff and include some favorites of theirs like a coconut carrot soup and apple streusel muffins.
And if kids wanted to see more of the world, not only could they see the map in the hallway but they could look at the old-school way on a globe and on the new-age way with computers using Google Earth.
“The excitement of the kids has really been through the roof,” Toomey said.
You can reach Joshua Solomon at:
jsolomon@recorder.com
413-772-0261, ext. 264