Best learning ‘ever’

Kid Pan Alley has been visiting Springfield Elementary near Luray this past week for one of their “Wonders and Reflections — songs of the Shenandoah National Park” programs.

In celebration of the 100th anniversary of the National Park Service, Kid Pan Alley created this project to bring children to the park to experience its beauty, majesty, and importance to our natural and national history so that they may become the next generation of visitors, supporters and stewards.

Since September, seven schools from the area including Rappahannock Elementary, CCLC and Hearthstone have participated in the park program thanks to generous grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Shenandoah National Park Trust and Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

The rangers take the children on a tour of the park and discuss the natural habitat with them. Back at the school, the kids write about the experience in group songwriting sessions led by Rappahannock County’s own Kid Pan Alley founder Paul Reisler.

According to Dr. Terri Wiita, the principal at Luray: “A reading of any one of the song’s lyrics portrays young minds that were clearly influenced by nature, the wildlife, the habitats, and the life cycles they observed . . . . In closing, as a school principal for more than twenty years, I have never had any group provide a better learning experience for my students – ever.”