Elementary Students Swap Smiles With Seniors:
Developing Cross-Generational Relationships via Art

Madison, WI (March 24, 2010) – On Wednesday, March 24 students from Wingra School will visit Capitol Lakes Retirement Community to teach residents how to create homemade trading cards.

This will be the second in a series of four visits.

Artist Trading Cards (ATCs) are an artistic variation of baseball cards, each measuring 2 ½ x 3 ½ inches. Enthusiasm for ATCs is contagious. Wingra School librarian, Angie Sparks and parent volunteer Shelley Savage Caw introduced Wingra students to ATCs last fall. “Kids were overwhelmingly excited,” says Sparks. “It is so accessible to work with a tiny canvas like this.”

Wingra School hosted several after-school artist trading card workshops, which were swamped with students and their families. “There was a wonderful creative buzz,” says Sparks. This led to interactive signs “leave one, take one” throughout the school and an evening event for families to create, display and swap cards.

Because of the enthusiasm of students, Sparks and Caw decided to take the ATC show on the road as a service club. Students now help transport supplies, examples and ideas to a new community of artists at Capitol Lakes Retirement Community. Students teach residents how to make the cards, sharing their joy and knowledge as they visit.

“We set up our materials,” says student, Indigo, “paper, double-sided tape, hole punches, markers, crayons, scissors, glue sticks, pictures…”

“Then we introduce ourselves,” says Indigo, “invite them to make cards and show them some of our cards as examples.” Indigo worked with a resident named Nancy. “She was very nice and really liked one of my techniques so I helped her make one like it,” says Indigo. “She made it kind of like mine but added her own style,” he said. “It was cool; I didn’t realize how many different ways you could make a card and incorporate different ideas.”

“We got to meet new people,” says student, Elena, “It’s really fun and I made a friend!”

Wingra School is a small, independent day school providing a progressive education for children ages 5-14 in the Madison area since 1972. For more information, visit our website at http://www.wingraschool.org or follow us on Twitter and Facebook.