We're Glad You're Here
We're Glad You're Here
NAME | Alina
GRADE | 5
LOCATION | Anchorage, Alaska
Alina, a 5th grader from Anchorage, Alaska, is redesigning tardy slips at her school by creating slips featuring art and welcoming, encouraging messages to decrease feelings of discomfort for young students who are late to school. In this way, she’s harnessing her art skills and creativity to spread positivity and support her classmates.
Alina noticed that the tardy slips at her school were often being given out to the same students, and sometimes, students would seem uncomfortable having to hand the pass with the word “Tardy” to the teacher after coming in. Instead, she wants these passes to reinforce the students’ importance to the school community. Alina and her friends are planning to add messages to these slips like “We’re glad you’re here!” or “Our school is better when you are here!” so that their classmates will always feel welcomed when walking through the door.
The problem I would like to solve is the tardy slips that are given out at my school. When kids come late to school, they are given a laminated pass that says, "Tardy" on it. I don't think it's an elementary student's fault that they're late to school, and I think that I can create a friendlier way to still have a late pass to class but with a nicer message. It's important to me because I see my friends come to school tardy and they seem uncomfortable at times walking in the room late and then they hand the Tardy Pass to my teacher and we see it.
My solution is to create new late cards that have kinder, more welcoming messages on them. Plus, I love art! I'm always drawing and I would like to incorporate my art with encouraging words. I'm thinking about sayings like, "We're glad you're here!" "Our school is better when you are here!" and things like that. I would want to have several different saying and artwork because it's usually the same students who are late and I would want them to be able to read a new message each day.
My next steps are:
1. Talk to the administrator in the office and see if she would be okay with me creating new late slips for our school.
2. Sketch and create new sayings and art for late slips.
3. Buy heavy cardstock and create the new slips and have them laminated.
I'm excited to see my classmates' faces when they enter the room with new late slips.
Update: I have cardstock now and I am ready to start making my tardy slips.
I have a few friends who also love to draw, so maybe they would like to help me create new late slips. I would also need to research some inspiring sayings and thinks of different ways to welcome kids to school. We have a lot of different languages spoken at my school, so it might be fun to incorporate WELCOME in different languages as well. I don't think kids are late on purpose, and I am curious to see if changing the message changes their facial expression when entering the classroom.