Estimated read time: 2-3 minutes
FARMINGTON — Two women, both teachers and sisters, allowed their classes to collaborate on a special project.
Penny Bradshaw teaches kindergarten at Knowlton Elementary School in Farmington. Bradshaw's sister, Pari Bennion, teaches family and consumer sciences at Frontier Middle School in Eagle Mountain.
"I was trying to figure out what would inspire my kids and I thought, 'My sister is a teacher,'" Bennion said. "And I'm sure that she would be willing to take part in the project."
She told her sister the idea.
"She said, 'How would you like to have our classes collaborate on a project?'" Bradshaw said. "I'm like, 'Brilliant! That is the best idea ever.'"
Bradshaw was teaching shapes, so she had her kindergarten class design monsters using some of the shapes they'd learned.
"I said that they needed to draw at least three shapes in their monster," Bradshaw said.
Bradshaw told her kindergartners they'd be giving their drawings to middle school students but they didn't know the reason why.
Bennion's students were learning how to hand stitch and used this project to work on their sewing skills.
"We were focusing on hand stitching; they have to do a straight stitch, a back stitch, a blanket stitch, an overcast stitch, and sew on two buttons," Bennion said. "So the eyes are generally the buttons."
The students set to work creating the monsters just as the kindergarteners had designed them: crooked smile, one eye, horns, snaggle tooth, arms, legs, hair, and all.
Then, the big reveal came.
"So Pari delivered the monsters in the drawings back in a box and I pulled the box out and I said, 'Guess what I got back?'" Bradshaw said. "And they went wild. They were so excited. They were just squealing with delight."
"My students loved it just as much as her students," Bennion said. "They look forward to one, getting the picture, but they look forward mostly to seeing the picture that she takes and sends back to my kids and the thank you notes that the kids write."
Both teachers said the project was especially fun for students because it was doing something for someone else.
"The joy that they got out of it doing it for someone else was incredible," Bradshaw said.
