Peters Township preschoolers use recyclables for fashion show
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Fashion show participants at the Goddard School in Peters Township include, from left, Reese Bilodeau, Piper Kollar and Maggie Cordero.
Mia Stofik has her photo taken during the fashion show.
Waiting their turn for the show are Benjamin Culp and Aarav Chaudhary.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
From left are Benjamin Froelich, Quinn Kutney, Rocco Cobourne and Clare Heckler.
Clara McPherson shows off her recycled ensemble to celebrate "Root for the Earth" week at the Goddard School in Peters Township.
Maggie Cordero, left, and Harper McCarey show excitement at participating in the fashion show.
Claire McCluskey participates in the fashion show.
Mackenzie Parks
Oscar Hutchins, left, and Bryson Miller take a walk along a Goddard School hallway.
Emilia LaNauze seems to enjoy what's transpiring around her.
Everett Woessner is dressed in style.
Rebecca Wockley holds Everett Wallace.
Silas Simonette takes what must be an interesting walk.
From left are Philip Seeds, Primrose Simonette and Vivian Woessner.
Brooklyn Larimer shows off a particularly cute outfit.
Fans of the Ben Stiller film “Zoolander” will remember the title character participating in a parody of a fashion show that featured trash as clothing.
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Maggie Sarneso takes a look through the door of her classroom in advance of the fashion show.
In anticipation of Earth Day, youngsters at the Goddard School of Peters Township participated in something similar, but much more meaningful.
And much cleaner.
“In each classroom, they collected recyclables from their lunches, and then they started making outfits out of the them,” school director Haylee Larimer said. “They told their parents what was going on, and the parents participated by bringing in some recyclables from home, as well.”
The culminating activity was the students’ own fashion show, with children modeling the likes of decorated paper grocery bags as aprons, styrofoam containers as hats and cardboard boxes and purses.
“They’re always engaging in fun activities,” said Lori Santo, an on-site owner of the Goddard School in Peters Township. “They’re learning a multitude of things, but they don’t even realize they’re learning because it’s hands-on and tactile. And this is a great example of it.”
Harry Funk/The Almanac
Haylee Larimer holds daughter Brooklyn.
In addition to the Peters Township location, Lori Santo and her husband, Bob, are onsite owners of the Goddard location in Upper St. Clair. Goddard Systems Inc., the franchiser for the schools, often develops weekly educational campaigns, and the latest is “Root for the Earth.”
“We want to teach them how to recycle and the different ways we can help the earth,” Larimer said. “Our kindergarten class talked about ocean animals and how they if they get caught up in plastic, it’s bad for them.”
The school has been providing lessons about recycling for quite a while, Larimer said.
“In the office, we keep a bin of paper,” she said. “We don’t just throw the paper away. The kids use that as scrap paper. So, the kids are always asking why they have writing on the back of their papers, and we teach them that we’re recycling the papers because we need to save the trees.”
“Root for the Earth” week featured numerous opportunities for Goddard students to learn more about the importance of protecting the environment, including the children picking up scraps that had accumulated on the school grounds over the winter.
Activities involved the children collecting twigs, rocks and other items with which to spell out “earth. The children also planted vegetables and flowers.
“We have three garden beds, and we plant, we maintain and we eat from them,” Santo said. “The older kids love to know that we’re eating from the garden.”
The students in general have been taking what they’ve learned to heart. Larimer said one of the students returned from school and announced some lofty future plans.
“Mom, we need to start recycling at home. We need to save the earth!”
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Natalie Naser holds Alexandria Springer.