We started off the spring semester by adding a handful of new students to the program. K@P now serves over twenty children! Students are nominated to join K@P by their teachers or administrators. New students are brought on each semester as their school teachers discover new children that would benefit from our program.

In the first two weeks, the children created imaginary cityscapes utilizing recycled bottle caps donated by Rhoades Elementary School. The K@P kids built roads, buildings, people, and other wild things all out of bottle caps. Some students poured paint all over their city creations as an “otherworldly” final touch.

The kids collaborated on their own “lore” for their cities. Our favorites include a sprawling city of spiders, and a massive McDonalds which Mr. Julian was humorously “not allowed to enter”.

During February, we had guest artist Jamie Pierson of Scrap Designs lead the children in conceptualizing and building a “Little Free Art Mart”. This project, once complete, would live in our gallery and hold simple art supplies. All items inside would be free for anyone to take and create, or to donate new items.

Children got to learn woodworking basics and use simple and safe power tools to construct the art mart frame. Then, each student designed their own wooden plank to adorn the outside of the “Little Free Art Mart”. This project was a way for the kids to give back to an arts community that has provided them with their own pathway of exploration through the arts! You can visit our gallery to see the art mart in person today.

After their hard work on the “Little Free Art Mart”, the K@P kids were rewarded with a free create week. Many children spent the time painting or drawing with markers. Other children used their newly acquired woodworking skills to build ramps and roadways out of wood for their Hot Wheels cars to race on. Some students even cast resin in molds to make their own dice sets, coasters, light switch/outlet covers and general cool stuff!

Looking ahead, the K@P kids will work with visiting artists to construct a large float for the 2024 Rooster Days parade. We will have information in the coming months about ways the community can contribute to this float as well.

Thank you to our community partners, Broken Arrow Public Schools and Broken Arrow Neighbors for continuing to support both this program and these children’s lives.