School Bulletin: Kindergartners 'Blooming with Knowledge'

MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- The kindergartners at West Bend's McLane Elementary have already made their mark on the school in just the first two weeks of the term. Not to worry though, this paint job was sanctioned.

"The very first time they came to art for the school year, they planned and practiced how to use the paint brush," Debra Landess, an art teacher, says.

Landess and McLane's principal, Andrew Kasik, spent the last weeks of summer planning and preparing for a new mural to replace the old "Fish Wall" that was fading. The new design fits the school's theme for the year, "Blooming with Knowledge," and each student painted their own blooms. And although these flowers aren't real, Mother Nature still played a role in this garden.

"I knew I only had one class period, with good weather, to have the students do their blossom," Landess says.

The blossoms on the new mural will last through the changing seasons and long after kids leave the elementary school.

"The kids were very proud. They wanted to show grandmas and moms and dads as they were coming in," Landess says. "They were pointing and showing brothers and sisters what they did. It's pretty exciting for them."

This isn't the first big art project Landess has taken on with McLane students. Each year her 4th grade classes paint fun designs on two-by-four boards that get used in Habitat for Humanity homes. It's a project Landess says she has led for more than 10 years, and it's another example of how the school impacts its neighbors.

"It's a very community-oriented school," Kasik says. "That's just how McLane has always been and will continue to be."