Child's Play Coincides with
Prez Election
They are much too young to cast an actual ballot, but Huntington School District third and fourth graders will still be involved in the upcoming presidential election.
Huntington's arts-in-education program is sponsoring a "Kid's for President" Child's Play writing project that will coincide with the Tuesday, November 6 national vote. "The students are writing stories about what they would do if they were president," said Joan R. Fretz, district director of fine and performing arts.
The Huntington School District's AIE committee presents programs designed to enhance the study of literature, humanities, mathematics, science, fine and performing arts, health and character education.
"We are having the actors from Child's Play Touring Theater come to the district on November 1-2 to present stories written by children, including a premier performance of plays based on our own students' writing," Ms. Fretz said.
The program has proved to be quite popular in the past. "We usually do it in the spring, but couldn't resist the opportunity to connect student ideas to the upcoming election," Ms. Fretz said. "So, we are really excited that we have performance dates right before the real election. I'm hoping it will spark some conversations in classrooms about the democratic process."
AIE committee members are local parent volunteers. Ms. Fretz advises and helps coordinate the committee, which receives support from the Huntington Council of PTA's and the district.
The AIE committee researches and plans cultural arts and exploratory programs linked directly to core curriculum for every grade level. Students participate in a wide range of experiences from seeing their own pieces of creative writing performed by professional actors and chatting with famous authors to working with real scientists and "meeting" characters from American history.