tips & news FIRST GRADE TIPS MINDFULNESS BY ISABELLA TAXILAGA BIOGRAPHY: My name is Isabella Taxilaga and I am in the first grade at P.S. 122 in Astoria. My favorite things to do are reading, writing and drawing. I love to write poems, songs and stories about my family and what I feel. I really love doing this job and I’m very happy and proud to write for everybody. Anyone can write as much as they want and become really good — I did that, too. Writing makes me really happy, I hope it makes you feel wonderful, too! In my class we practice something called “Mindful Minutes.” Being mindful is a calm and relaxing thing. It makes you feel peaceful and even joyful. You can take a few minutes to yourself to have mindful breathing, listening or seeing. Mostly you do it with your eyes closed, but it can all be relaxing and help to make you focus. Here are some steps to help you get started: -First you find a comfortable place and sit nice and tall (for the whole time). Please keep your eyes closed and bring your hand mindfully to your anchor spot. -An anchor spot can be your stomach, your heart or your nose or any place that you can feel your breathing. -Now, please take mindful breaths for one whole minute while keeping your hand on your anchor spot. -Hear all the sounds around you and keep your eyes closed. -Take a moment to know your feelings. “Mindful Minutes” are great to do because you can do it anywhere you are. When you are finished with it you feel ready to work and to do a great job. If you are feeling sad or angry or worried this kind of breathing can help you, too. Just remember that if you are walking and you want to do Mindful Minutes, keep your eyes open! Thank you Mrs. Lupoli for teaching me all about being mindful. Isabella was the grand prize winner of The Be Kind People Project’s national student writing contest. Students tackle social issues through the arts BY ANGY ALTAMIRANO A group of middle school students have turned to their creative sides to speak out on major social issues such as racism, bullying, drug addiction and religious tolerance. Walter Reed School in Maspeth, Robert E. Peary School in Glendale and eight other schools have teamed up with nonprofit arts education organization Learning through an Expanded Arts Program (LeAp) to help students create an art exhibit turning cafeteria benches into large-scale canvases. Students presented their cafeteria bench pieces to an audience in Union Square on May 20 and then presented their works at Socrates Sculpture Park on May 30 in LIC. During the May 30 presentation, students were able to discuss their public artworks, were honored by guest speakers and then lead peerto peer workshops with other students, creating two large-scale works of art that will be on display at Socrates this summer. “Kids are part of our communities and experience all the same things we do but don’t have a voice,” said Alexandra Leff, creator and director of LeAp’s Public Art Program. “LeAp’s Public Art Program gives them a citywide platform to express themselves on issues that matter to most to them." The exhibits are meant to help students address problems in their communities that are important to them. These issues include substance abuse, teen pregnancy and dropping out of school and each table features pictures created by students from both schools. The art exhibits are part of LeAp’s larger citywide project to empower students in 10 schools on topics and issues that students come up with. The cafeteria benches will be on display for the Photo Courtesy of LeAp whole summer at 10 city parks spanning throughout the five boroughs and afterwards they will go on display in each school. “We are so proud of our students having taken on such major issues in thoughtful, creative and powerful ways and we are sure that the hundreds of thousands of New Yorkers who see these beautiful and meaningful tables citywide this summer will be enlightened and inspired,” Leff said.
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