Today's photos come from the February 16th SLANT 45 launch event at Pope Elementary School in the Arlington ISD. SLANT 45 Chairman Daryl Johnston visited the students - along with donors Ted and Shannon Skokos - to check in on their progress with their SLANT 45 service-learning projects.
Visit the SLANT 45 website to register your student group for this historic service-learning program!
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, March 25, 2010
Team Sasha
Building a Memory: Team Sasha collects LEGOs for SLANT 45 in honor of a friend’s life
By Steve Pate
from SLANT 45 newsletter In the Huddle
Sasha Okhotskiy loved LEGOs. Even when the brain cancer returned and he did not always remember one day from the next, he spent hours in his room at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, making art from the little plastic pieces.
When Sasha passed away last August at age 11, his coach at the Plano Sports Authority volunteered to organize a basketball team, named Team Sasha, comprised of the seven boys who enjoyed playing together with Sasha. (The picture at left is of Team Sasha 3 years ago with their inspiration, Sasha Okhotskiy, seated second row, far left.)
Most of the boys were small but, like Sasha, athletic. Very early, they confronted a team with 11 players who had been together since kindergarten. Team Sasha won, 41-14. They proceeded to win 19 consecutive games without a loss.
“We just blew everybody away,” says Lynn Fellhauer, whose son Lane had been good friends with Sasha and played on the team. “Looking at them, nobody could believe this team would win. But the kids were good, and we had the spirit.”
Surely their greatest fan was Sasha’s dad, Sergei. He attended every game and sat on the bench and cheered loudly.
And despite losing on the court for the only time in the championship game last month, Team Sasha is not done just yet.
They have now become a part of SLANT 45.
And how would these seven boys like to dedicate their time to this huge Super Bowl XLV creative learning initiative? By collecting LEGOs, of course, and donating them to Children’s Medical Center.
Lynn Fellhauer owns The Graphic Edge, a graphics design company that makes large posters and banners and signs. While online one day researching Super Bowl XLV’s Emerging Business Program for minority- and women-owned businesses, she spotted the SLANT 45 logo and decided to look into the program.
“We had already been talking about doing a community service project,” Lynn says. “In the Jewish community, they call it a mitzvah — doing a good deed. We knew how much Sasha loved LEGOs, so we decided to collect LEGOs at our schools, our churches, our temples in honor of Sasha.”
She adds, “Children get that their parents and religious leaders and teachers care about community service. But when their heroes, like football players, get involved, then they feel that it’s kind of important.”
Lynn is now the project coach for Team Sasha’s newest endeavor. For hospital sanitation reasons, the LEGOs they collect must be new and still in their packages.
Lane, age 12, says they hope to collect 100 boxes of LEGOs this summer. Or, as he puts it, “Enough to make everybody happy.”
Lane adds, “Sasha liked LEGOs so much, and it’s a good thing to do for kids who can’t be as active as they want to be. He built amazing things. So this is cool; it’s exciting.”
Lane and the other boys never abandoned Sasha. From the time his headaches began in the second grade and the tumor was found, they stuck by him through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. When he beat it that time, he remained a superior athlete.
And when the cancer returned even worse in the summer of his fifth grade year, the children visited him at the hospital throughout the treatments.
“Adults cannot handle anybody passing away,” Lynn says, “and it’s really even harder for a child. How do you explain to them — your friend? You can’t.”
And yet, through it all, perhaps Sasha’s friends have learned a good deal more about life than death.
And then there is this: On the night that Team Sasha walked off the court with their 19th and final victory, Olga Okhotskiy gave birth to her second child, a son named Elan.
Someday Elan will hear the stories of his older brother’s legend, of Sasha’s joys with LEGOs and the championship run of Team Sasha and the Super Bowl program SLANT 45, where the spirit lives on.
By Steve Pate
from SLANT 45 newsletter In the Huddle
Sasha Okhotskiy loved LEGOs. Even when the brain cancer returned and he did not always remember one day from the next, he spent hours in his room at Children’s Medical Center of Dallas, making art from the little plastic pieces.At the hospital, Sasha put together smaller items. He had already built a remarkable carousel. And a four-foot-tall Empire State Building. He used 5,922 LEGOs to construct the Taj Mahal.
When Sasha passed away last August at age 11, his coach at the Plano Sports Authority volunteered to organize a basketball team, named Team Sasha, comprised of the seven boys who enjoyed playing together with Sasha. (The picture at left is of Team Sasha 3 years ago with their inspiration, Sasha Okhotskiy, seated second row, far left.)
Most of the boys were small but, like Sasha, athletic. Very early, they confronted a team with 11 players who had been together since kindergarten. Team Sasha won, 41-14. They proceeded to win 19 consecutive games without a loss.
“We just blew everybody away,” says Lynn Fellhauer, whose son Lane had been good friends with Sasha and played on the team. “Looking at them, nobody could believe this team would win. But the kids were good, and we had the spirit.”
Surely their greatest fan was Sasha’s dad, Sergei. He attended every game and sat on the bench and cheered loudly.
And despite losing on the court for the only time in the championship game last month, Team Sasha is not done just yet.
They have now become a part of SLANT 45.
And how would these seven boys like to dedicate their time to this huge Super Bowl XLV creative learning initiative? By collecting LEGOs, of course, and donating them to Children’s Medical Center.
Lynn Fellhauer owns The Graphic Edge, a graphics design company that makes large posters and banners and signs. While online one day researching Super Bowl XLV’s Emerging Business Program for minority- and women-owned businesses, she spotted the SLANT 45 logo and decided to look into the program.
“We had already been talking about doing a community service project,” Lynn says. “In the Jewish community, they call it a mitzvah — doing a good deed. We knew how much Sasha loved LEGOs, so we decided to collect LEGOs at our schools, our churches, our temples in honor of Sasha.”
She adds, “Children get that their parents and religious leaders and teachers care about community service. But when their heroes, like football players, get involved, then they feel that it’s kind of important.”
Lynn is now the project coach for Team Sasha’s newest endeavor. For hospital sanitation reasons, the LEGOs they collect must be new and still in their packages.
Lane, age 12, says they hope to collect 100 boxes of LEGOs this summer. Or, as he puts it, “Enough to make everybody happy.”
Lane adds, “Sasha liked LEGOs so much, and it’s a good thing to do for kids who can’t be as active as they want to be. He built amazing things. So this is cool; it’s exciting.”
Lane and the other boys never abandoned Sasha. From the time his headaches began in the second grade and the tumor was found, they stuck by him through chemotherapy and radiation treatments. When he beat it that time, he remained a superior athlete.
And when the cancer returned even worse in the summer of his fifth grade year, the children visited him at the hospital throughout the treatments.
“Adults cannot handle anybody passing away,” Lynn says, “and it’s really even harder for a child. How do you explain to them — your friend? You can’t.”
And yet, through it all, perhaps Sasha’s friends have learned a good deal more about life than death.
And then there is this: On the night that Team Sasha walked off the court with their 19th and final victory, Olga Okhotskiy gave birth to her second child, a son named Elan.
Someday Elan will hear the stories of his older brother’s legend, of Sasha’s joys with LEGOs and the championship run of Team Sasha and the Super Bowl program SLANT 45, where the spirit lives on.
Friday, March 19, 2010
Super (Bowl) Special Photo Friday!
Check out this awesome short commercial about Slant 45! These will start airing on Fox 4 this weekend - see if you can find one during the ad breaks between your cartoons and favorite family shows.
Kids: to sign up for Slant 45, check out the registration page with a teacher, scout leader or parent. Then get your friends together and start brainstorming about how you can make a change for the better in your community!
Kids: to sign up for Slant 45, check out the registration page with a teacher, scout leader or parent. Then get your friends together and start brainstorming about how you can make a change for the better in your community!
Friday, March 12, 2010
Photo Friday!
As promised, here are some of Community Site Manager Judy's awesome pictures of the students in the Thriving Minds after-school program. These were taken during their fantastic Black History Month celebration in February. What a smiley, happy bunch of kiddos!
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Guest Blog: Mills Elementary Site Manager Judy Danielson
Hello again, all!
Each day continues to be an adventure here in the Thriving Minds after-school program at Mills, and we’ve all been busy. Our third, fourth and fifth graders have been working on some excellent creative writing; they have great imaginations when they are inspired by an idea. Kindergarten, first and second graders have been doing fun arts and crafts, including some very cool bird masks and funky mirrors with frames. They’ve also been making a respect journal and discussing how important respect is in all of our lives.
We have all, staff and students, been hard at work on our Black History Month performance which took place on February 26. Our students put on a fabulous show for their families, friends and teachers highlighting the important contributions that African Americans have made, and continue to make, in the shaping of our country. The children performed African songs and dances, and portrayed famous African Americans such as Harriet Tubman and Thurgood Marshall; the girls also did a beautiful praise dance. Their parents were so very proud of them and so was I - the children were just beaming with pride! I asked some of them what the best part of the performance was for them. Most answered, “My mom said I did good,” and “I saw my daddy clapping…”
Enough said!
Stay tuned for pictures from the Black History Month celebration tomorrow on Photo Friday.
Until next time,
Judy Danielson
Community Site Manager, Mills Elementary
Thriving Minds After-School
Each day continues to be an adventure here in the Thriving Minds after-school program at Mills, and we’ve all been busy. Our third, fourth and fifth graders have been working on some excellent creative writing; they have great imaginations when they are inspired by an idea. Kindergarten, first and second graders have been doing fun arts and crafts, including some very cool bird masks and funky mirrors with frames. They’ve also been making a respect journal and discussing how important respect is in all of our lives.
We have all, staff and students, been hard at work on our Black History Month performance which took place on February 26. Our students put on a fabulous show for their families, friends and teachers highlighting the important contributions that African Americans have made, and continue to make, in the shaping of our country. The children performed African songs and dances, and portrayed famous African Americans such as Harriet Tubman and Thurgood Marshall; the girls also did a beautiful praise dance. Their parents were so very proud of them and so was I - the children were just beaming with pride! I asked some of them what the best part of the performance was for them. Most answered, “My mom said I did good,” and “I saw my daddy clapping…”
Enough said!
Stay tuned for pictures from the Black History Month celebration tomorrow on Photo Friday.
Until next time,
Judy Danielson
Community Site Manager, Mills Elementary
Thriving Minds After-School
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Quality: A Meaty Subject
What if I told you that I was gonna fix you a steak dinner, but when you came to my house to eat it the kitchen was infested with ants, the steaks had been sitting out all day and I served 'em on a paper plate? Very quickly, you’d realize that even a steak dinner can be an unenjoyable experience if the quality isn’t there. That’s why Big Thought holds Quality Panels - to make sure what Dallas is serving up in- and out-of-school is grade A, prime-cut teaching and learning…
The eighth triannual panel kicked off last Wednesday with a BANG! Fine arts teachers from Dallas ISD, community arts and culture pros, Big Thought staff and national arts education hotshots came together at the Meyerson Symphony Center (home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra) to dig into arts programs in Dallas.
Our task was to go out into the community to watch teachers teach and children learn and then come together in groups based on discipline (theater, visual arts, music and dance) to talk about what we saw. We talked about strengths - how much better the training and support for arts education is now than when we began this process and what we can do to call attention to that. We talked about weaknesses - what's still not clicking, what we need to do to fix it and how we can share the responsibility.
It was an eye-opening experience for many - even veterans of the Quality Panels saw things that were new and different; and that, after all, is the point. We use this in-the-room research and observation to help us make arts education better both in- and out-of-school. It's not for our benefit...it's for the benefit of our community partners, who've stood with us for the last 20+ years to get fine arts back in the curriculum and in the hearts and minds of the citizens of Dallas. It's for the benefit of the educators, who deserve the support and opportunities to improve their techniques and discover new ways to reach children. Most important of all, it's for the benefit of the children of Dallas, who deserve an unparalleled education that prepares them for success throughout their lives.
Now: who wants that steak dinner?
The eighth triannual panel kicked off last Wednesday with a BANG! Fine arts teachers from Dallas ISD, community arts and culture pros, Big Thought staff and national arts education hotshots came together at the Meyerson Symphony Center (home of the Dallas Symphony Orchestra) to dig into arts programs in Dallas.
Our task was to go out into the community to watch teachers teach and children learn and then come together in groups based on discipline (theater, visual arts, music and dance) to talk about what we saw. We talked about strengths - how much better the training and support for arts education is now than when we began this process and what we can do to call attention to that. We talked about weaknesses - what's still not clicking, what we need to do to fix it and how we can share the responsibility.
It was an eye-opening experience for many - even veterans of the Quality Panels saw things that were new and different; and that, after all, is the point. We use this in-the-room research and observation to help us make arts education better both in- and out-of-school. It's not for our benefit...it's for the benefit of our community partners, who've stood with us for the last 20+ years to get fine arts back in the curriculum and in the hearts and minds of the citizens of Dallas. It's for the benefit of the educators, who deserve the support and opportunities to improve their techniques and discover new ways to reach children. Most important of all, it's for the benefit of the children of Dallas, who deserve an unparalleled education that prepares them for success throughout their lives.
Now: who wants that steak dinner?
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Our Daily Reading List
At Big Thought, we believe it's important to stay informed about everything that's going on in the arts, education, public policy and the news in general. Our work demands that we be familiar with the trends in our industry and the latest research; to keep our knowledge current, we read several blogs every day.
Our Internal Communications Manager scours the web daily to send the staff and board of Big Thought the "Daily News" - a compendium of education, policy and arts-related articles and blog posts from the likes of Eduwonk, the Dallas Morning News' Dallas ISD Blog and Americans for the Arts' Artsblog, among others. These articles help us stay abreast of everything from TAKS score reports for the Dallas ISD to opportunities for advocacy on the state and national levels to studies on the benefits of charter and early-college schools.
Since our work is so deeply entrenched in the North Texas community, we also find time to read local news blogs like D Magazine's FrontBurner and SweetCharity, KERA's Art & Seek and the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park. In addition, since our work is centered on increasing the number and quality of creative learning experiences for children of all ages, we frequent local "Mommyblogs" like the Fort Worth Star Telegram's Mom2MomDFW and BurbMom to read about what local parents do with their children and what additional educational opportunities they're seeking. These resources keep us in tune with the sentiment of our local community, which is very important for our work.
Finally, we like to indulge our inner nerd every once in awhile with blogs like Imagine That! from Psychology Today and the TED blog. Imagine That! always features great new statistics and scientific evidence for the importance of imagination and creative learning on brain development - topics dear to our hearts, minds and mission. The TED blog brings us inspiration through their coverage of wide-ranging topics from education policy to healthcare to climate change.
If you are a parent, educator or donor interested in staying current like us, check out our brand-spankin'-new Daily Reading List on the right-hand side of the blog. It's still a work in progress, but it features many of the blogs and websites we visit daily to keep ourselves in-the-know. Have ideas/suggestions about other useful blogs? We love to discover new things! Leave us a comment to tell us what you read!
Our Internal Communications Manager scours the web daily to send the staff and board of Big Thought the "Daily News" - a compendium of education, policy and arts-related articles and blog posts from the likes of Eduwonk, the Dallas Morning News' Dallas ISD Blog and Americans for the Arts' Artsblog, among others. These articles help us stay abreast of everything from TAKS score reports for the Dallas ISD to opportunities for advocacy on the state and national levels to studies on the benefits of charter and early-college schools.
Since our work is so deeply entrenched in the North Texas community, we also find time to read local news blogs like D Magazine's FrontBurner and SweetCharity, KERA's Art & Seek and the Dallas Observer's Unfair Park. In addition, since our work is centered on increasing the number and quality of creative learning experiences for children of all ages, we frequent local "Mommyblogs" like the Fort Worth Star Telegram's Mom2MomDFW and BurbMom to read about what local parents do with their children and what additional educational opportunities they're seeking. These resources keep us in tune with the sentiment of our local community, which is very important for our work.
Finally, we like to indulge our inner nerd every once in awhile with blogs like Imagine That! from Psychology Today and the TED blog. Imagine That! always features great new statistics and scientific evidence for the importance of imagination and creative learning on brain development - topics dear to our hearts, minds and mission. The TED blog brings us inspiration through their coverage of wide-ranging topics from education policy to healthcare to climate change.
If you are a parent, educator or donor interested in staying current like us, check out our brand-spankin'-new Daily Reading List on the right-hand side of the blog. It's still a work in progress, but it features many of the blogs and websites we visit daily to keep ourselves in-the-know. Have ideas/suggestions about other useful blogs? We love to discover new things! Leave us a comment to tell us what you read!
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