Written by Spring 2025 AFA/TAP Extern Summer Xiang
On Tuesday, April 1st, resident teaching artist Samantha Funk came prepared to introduce a new word to the kindergarten classes of RCS 2: resilience.
Class began as usual with a familiar call-and-response ritual. “I am an artist, eh—veryone is an artist. Soy un artista, to—dos son artistas.”
Then came a read-aloud of The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper, a timeless story about believing in yourself and pushing through challenges. The students listened intently, pointing out the various engines who refused to help and celebrating the little blue engine that rose to the task. When Sam asked how they might show resilience in their own lives, their answers ranged from tying shoes, to helping younger siblings, to, very fittingly, learning difficult words like resilience.
For the hands-on portion of the class, students decorated printed train templates with markers and glued on colorful confetti paper. The challenge was to stay within the lines—anything outside would be trimmed away when the trains were folded into 3D carts. I loved seeing their creativity come through with rainbow stripes, geometric patterns, and clever touches like cat faces on the front of the trains, giving them unique personalities just like the characters in the story.
Names were added to each train, and the sheets collected for the next class, when their individual carts will be strung together into a collaborative classroom train and students will have the chance to use their bodies to move like one too!
