Southside Students Create Stepping-Stone Project

A series of mosaic stepping stones created by kindergarten students will be dedicated in a special ceremony at 2:30 today at

Susan Nations’ kindergarten class developed the stepping stones for a campus courtyard. The art project was inspired by the theme: "The Learning Garden: Where Readers, Writers and Thinkers Grow!"

School officials and arts supporters are pleased by the school-community partnership that allowed for this unusual artwork to grow.

The 19 students from the Southside class partnered with Youth Experiencing Art (YEA Arts) and students from to undertake the art project.

“It was my goal to integrate the garden theme with our learning and the arts,” said Nations, the kindergarten teacher.

“We noticed that mosaics are made of small pieces of materials that combine to make one beautiful picture. The students learned that their own brains are like that: every time they learn a new ‘nugget’ of information it adds to their thinking and makes a bigger and more beautiful picture.” 

The kindergarten students first created mosaics out of paper. Then they made a small mosaic garden stone. Finally, they made larger stones to share with the Southside school community.

The larger stones will be placed in the school's courtyard during this ceremony; the smaller mosaic stones will be given to parents.

YEA Arts has a well-established reputation for its collaborations with community arts organizations, children's centers and schools. Its artistic projects are designed to enhance core-curriculum learning through arts integration.

Ringling College of Art and Design is a private, not-for-profit college whose 14  disciplines include Digital Filmmaking, Fine Arts and Game Art & Design.