Kids get into 'art' of building a city at Oakland Beach School

By John Howell
Posted 6/13/17

By JOHN HOWELL There's a city in Oakland Beach School. It's got an amusement park, an airport, lots of buildings, trucks and cars, subways, a tower with King Kong, bridges, a bunker should it come under attack, stores and, what every city should have, a

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Kids get into 'art' of building a city at Oakland Beach School

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There’s a city in Oakland Beach School. It’s got an amusement park, an airport, lots of buildings, trucks and cars, subways, a tower with King Kong, bridges, a bunker should it come under attack, stores and, what every city should have, a drive-in movie.

Students from every grade have had a role in building the city, which still doesn’t have a name. Construction has come over the last week and there’s no lack of ideas as to what more the city should have.

Well, what about the Statue of Liberty?

There’s no reason the statue should be limited to New York. So, now there’s a statue, which is not all that far from the Fidget Toy Factory with a parking lot. The parking lot is an important feature, says Catherine Davis-Hayes, the art teacher who came up with the concept of building a city.

It started with a telephone call and whether she would have any use for some cardboard tubes, like the one you would get when you’ve finished a roll of paper towels. She thought she might get a dozen or so of the tubes, but when a box arrived realized there were many more. Her collection expanded with scores of matchbox-sized cardboard boxes. Bigger boxes and empty quart-sized plastic bottles found their way into her collection of building materials. She had plenty of crayons and, with rolls of masking tape, the kids were encouraged to let their imaginations travel.

The city grew and grew. The cornerstone – well, actually, cardboard tube – started on one desk. Then came bridges to other desks, highways with boxcars and subways under the desks to move the expanding population to the airport, the factory and the parks.

Davis-Hayes is surprised how the city has bridged classes and piqued the interest of some of the students who up until now have gone along with art classes but really don’t have a passion for it. Ideas for new features of the city spring from young imaginations and with some crayons a cardboard box is transformed into what every city needs – a pizza parlor.

On a tour Friday, a select few sixth and fourth graders, who willingly left their lunch break, pointed out the city highlights. With the change in periods a class assembled at the door to the room. They hadn’t seen the city since their last art class some days earlier and were anxious to take in the changes as well as make additions.

Davis-Hayes is impressed not only by the diversity of projects students have thought of but also how a city might function in terms of where to place the amusement park, airport and modes of transportation. It only seemed right that the tower with King Kong should be in the center and that there be a rocket – created from a bottle – should not be all that far way.

Sixth-graders Robert DeSantis and Dasani Stewart made a few adjustments to the King Kong tower between expounding on city attributes. Asked what the city should be named, DeSantis replied “Tube Town.” Davis-Hayes liked it but suggested they hold a contest.

Another feature buildings are slated to get are windows, not just painted squares on cardboard but windows with special paint so that they’ll glow when Davis-Hayes turns off the regular lights and turns on the black light.

That has kids excited, but not nearly as much as to what happens to the city at the end of this week. That’s when sixth graders get the privilege of taking it down. Somehow, given the enthusiasm displayed by sixth graders on Friday, demolition of a city has also captured the imaginations of these kids.

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