ONE WORD, ONE LOVE
Here's a new event, "First Annual LOHI Run, Crawl, & Shop" - all fun things to do and this event is being presented in conjunction with a Colorado teacher's unique literacy program in which schoolchildren produce a newspaper. It's worth taking a look at so please read my interview with teacher Matthew Faas and then visit his site. |
 
Note from Carol: I checked out the onewordonelove.com site and think the student-written newspaper is too cool. There are a lot of neat touches. One of my favorite parts - kids create ads for advertisers, they make posters of sponsors/advertisers as heros, and the advertisers must fill out a form indicating how they want to be pictures: tall, short, with dog, color hair, etc. Very fun! If you work with kids, you've gotta check this out!
KIDS RUNNING: Who designed your One Word, One Love logo? Tell me the significance of the name "One Word, One Love.
MATTHEW FAAS: I wanted a logo that was light-hearted, friendly that also referenced something to do with literacy. As I was doodling on post-it notes I had an email address written down and I focused on the @ symbol for some reason. Then it hit me... place a heart where the "a" was. I instantly started thinking of names reflecting the image and my literacy program, after some brainstorming and research "One Word, One Love" stuck in my head. It was catchy, fun, light-hearted, and I could get away with saying things like "spread the word" and "spread the love":).
 Art by Marlene
KIDS RUNNING: Do you have journalism/newspaper background? If not, how did you research the making of a newspaper?
MATTHEW FAAS: I was an account executive with the Denver Newspaper Agency selling advertising for two newspapers in Denver. I started my college career as an elementary school teacher to be, then changed my major twice from Marketing and settling on Advertising as my concentration. I feel lucky, rarely do people use their college degrees in their current employment, and I get to use all of my college classroom experiences.
 KIDS RUNNING: How exciting is this for you to publish a student-written paper? Who gets more excited, you or the students?
MATTHEW FAAS: Without question the kids get the most excited. They work hard on their articles and art work and they understand the effort and the scale of this project. Every time I go into the classroom I hear "when is our paper coming out???". However, I was really surprised to find out that once the papers are delivered, the students rush to see what the other schools wrote about and not their own work. It's a really neat way to bring students from different neighborhoods together through something that has everything to do with learning, and I don't even think they know it's a teaching/learning tool:) Because of this, we are introducing our "International News" section in our next issue publishing in May. I was able to contact 5 different elementary schools in 5 different continents to submit articles about their life, neighborhood, interests, and school. I can't wait until our students and parents read what kids in different countries write about. The fact remains... Kids are going to be kids, no matter what corner of the globe they're from.
KIDS RUNNING: Running! How great to host a 5K as a fundraiser! How many youngsters do you think will participate (under 12)?
MATTHEW FAAS:Good question! Our event is free for all students 12 and under with a registered adult. We are asking our schools to sell registration forms as a fundraiser so we expect a large turnout, but because it's our first annual event we don't have a good estimate. We are awarding a 5-foot-tall trophy for "Denver's Fastest Elementary School" to the school who finishes with 20 student first. This trophy will be displayed at the winning school until the next year when their title of" Denver's Fastest School" is defended.
KIDS RUNNING: Do the kids do any kind of training for the 5K?
MATTHEW FAAS: We are asking the PE teachers from each school to field a team and start training! Each school will have a chance to compete and win. This race is free for all students 12 and under with a registered adult, and we hope that the families will start training with their kids to actively promoting healthy lifestyles.
KIDS RUNNING: What exactly is the CRAWL? Will people actually crawl? Do you have to register to do this?
MATTHEW FAAS:The "crawl" is for our parents and teachers to do after the event.
The crawl is a metaphor or sorts... people of age will be going bar to bar having drinks while giving to our schools. Our image of the crawler has a beer in his hand, it's a joke name but also an official name of an event like ours.
We have many businesses sponsoring this event and we invite all adults to hang out and have some fun while giving to our school. This part of the event is to celebrate the neighborhood. Some people take these events seriously and end up crawling home when their night is done:) Our sponsors of this event are donating 15% of their sales on June 13, to our elementary schools. Who said schools lack the support of their community?!
KIDS RUNNING: I see that sometimes this is offered to gifted in talented students, other times the whole 5th grade participates. I like the idea of this as a 5th grade project.
MATTHEW FAAS: I, too, like the 5th grade the best. I don't remember where that was documented but we share the "everyone gets the chance" attitude. We start with a classroom teacher and let the schools take it from there. The schools will find its place and each school is different so our program needs to stay flexible. We are looking to move to an after-school program because that gives us more freedom to take students on excursions to businesses, museums, etc. It may not have been stated but we introduced an intern from the local Art Institute for our last paper. The intern was learning what we did as a business, she designed our last newspaper, and we took her into the classroom to be a "real" role model and teach what she knew to the kids. We really liked this option but will revisit it later as we become more established. But if schools, or districts would pick this up as a curriculum, that would be the best possible outcome.
KIDS RUNNING: Best of luck with your program and I'll send interested people your way!
LINKS
Kids Running Listing for the Event
onewordonelove.com Educational Site
thelohiannual.com Race Site
Email Matthew Faas at thelohiannual@gmail.com |
