A kids’ mind is a terrible thing to waste during summer

Merilyn Potters

Tuesday, June 18, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Outside it's 103 and rising, but inside North Las Vegas' Antonello Elementary School, third- through fifth-graders are playing it cool. They're turning the repetitive passages of "This Old Man" into a Trinidad calypso.

Sean Harper, 11, beats on a steel drum to create the melody. With each repetition of the song, other students jump in with their steel drums. Volume and rhythm increase until the room reverberates with hypnotic percussion.

For Sean and the rest of the ensemble, summer might otherwise seem an endless lapse -- a time when languor fills the air and learning flies out the window. A time when Nintendo and television lure.

A time when parents cringe.

"Every June this is an issue," says Emily Newberry, public affairs director for the Lied Discovery Children's Museum and mother of three boys.

"My heart stops when I look down the long stretch of three months. What are we gonna do with kids all this time?"

The community is responding. Activities such as the steel drums program, which is part of the Clark County School District Extension Academy, are in full swing, turning children on to reading, drama, music and the arts.

"We need to keep kids involved, making use of their talents, minds and bodies," says Dorothy Wright, cultural program administrator with Clark County Parks and Recreation.

Debbie Cenna, music specialist at the Antonello summer program, snaps her fingers in time to the steel drumbeat.

"This may be the only opportunity children have to learn about these kinds of instruments and look at culture," she says.

Franz Grissom, a retired Navy master chief musician who volunteers in the classroom, explains that the sound is a recent innovation.

"Steel drums evolved around the time of the Second World War in Trinidad," he says. Musicians there formerly used pieces of bamboo to create music, but because some people used the instruments as weapons, the government banned them.

The Trinidadians, who made music out of materials readily available to them, discovered 55-gallon oil barrels left behind by the Navy.

They turned the barrels upside down, beat the bottoms until concave and sectioned off grooves to create notes.

Each student plays a different type of drum, some cut off to a shorter "skirt" for a higher tone and some left longer for a fuller, richer timbre.

On alternate days of the week, when they're not drumming, the students duplicate art through the ages.

They fashion gargoyles out of clay, paint cave art and embellish life-size mummy drawings with Egyptian symbols.

"We'll move history through time and end up with impressionism," says art specialist Karen Gulash.

Student musician Sean and his friend, Sebastian Cantero, also 11, took the combined course primarily because of their interest in the steel drums. But they're learning they have talent in the visual arts, too.

"I like making the clay pots," Sean says. "I'm really having fun."

Sebastian says going to organized programs in the summer is "like a habit."

Use 'em or lose 'em

While Sean, Sebastian and classmates thrum on drums or decorate life-size mummies, John Avdoian, 9, tries on a traditional boy's kimono at the Sunrise Library.

He's among about 20 children listening to Yoshi, a visiting children's book illustrator, talk about her work and her native Japanese culture. When she's finished, John and his brother James, 7, browse through her books, which tell stories of butterflies, fish and Eskimos.

"The library is a nice, cool place to be this summer," says the boys' mother, Pam Avdoian. "It's the best-kept secret in town."

Through the Las Vegas-Clark County Library District Summer Reading Program, this year dubbed "Don't Bug Me I'm Reading," her boys are attending presentations such as Yoshi's and reading for pleasure and incentive.

In the summer, children can lose up to four months of skills acquired during the school year, says Richard Riley, U.S. secretary of education

"The fact of the matter is, when it comes to reading and writing skills, you either use them or lose them," he says.

Participants in the library's reading program get a "bug card" and have it stamped each time they read for 15 minutes. Each of the nine cards issued during the program represents one hour of reading.

At the Big Bug Costume Bash in August, kids can wear costumes of their favorite bug and enter a grand prize drawing for a trip to a butterfly pavilion in San Francisco.

Those children who complete nine hours of reading will also be awarded a gold medal, a certificate and an opportunity to win other prizes.

Incentives or not, "reading is a priority," Avdoian says. She's a single mother and teacher at Eldorado High School. She takes her sons to the library, plays books on tapes at home and in the car, reads to them before bedtime and takes books on summer trips.

Charlie Ivy, owner of Learning is Fun stores, notes that reading need not be limited to books. Newspapers, magazines, recipes and even billboards can introduce important new vocabulary words and concepts, he says.

"Kids love sports, music, fashion, movies and outdoor activities." During the summer, help children find articles to read about those subjects, he suggests.

He also suggests helping children keep a journal of summer activities.

"It'll be fun to look back on, and it may come in handy the first day of school, when the teacher asks what students did during the summer."

If they must watch television, he says, tune in educational, news, nature and documentary programming.

What about older kids?

Easy for him to say, parents of older kids might be thinking. Indeed, adolescents are harder to keep occupied with learning activities during the summer.

"Ages between 12 and 16 are forgotten," says Christine Kaufmann, director of marketing at the YMCA of Southern Nevada. "That's a hard time to get kids excited about going to organized activities."

For that age group, the YMCA offers the Unity Construction Company, a leadership program that, according the Y's brochure, gives teens "the blueprints, tools and training to begin building a positive future for themselves and their community."

Camp Odyssey at Lee Canyon, geared to 11- to 15-year-olds is a one-week arts and science program available through the county Parks and Recreation Department.

"It's an environmental science class where students will also create recycled art projects and get leadership training," Wright says. The mountain camp also offers kids the traditional camp experience.

Older kids can also find appealing activities through their church youth groups or in their scouting programs.

Organize, plan

Some programs cost money, and for those, a limited number of scholarships are sometimes available (check with activity sponsors). Others, such as the library reading programs, don't cost anything.

Another difficulty for parents is transportation to and from activity locations. But some parents car pool. Others trade off with parents who don't work.

"Networking with other parents helps a lot," says Newberry. "I trade with friends. And I have a large family who live here. I can farm (my sons) out with their cousins, who I repay when I'm not working."

Keeping kids immersed in learning during the summer takes good planning, says Avdoian, who schedules her sons' various reading, music and recreational activities.

It's not just outside programs that can provide children with learning experiences. Parents can take an active role at home and on family vacations.

"We try to promote parent involvement rather than kids going out to do things," says Learning is Fun owner Ivy.

Let your children help plan and prepare family dinners, he suggests. They can help write menus and pick out the groceries.

Have an arts-and-crafts box or corner stocked with crayons, construction paper, glue, watercolors and other art material appropriate to your child's age.

"Let your child enjoy the anticipation and fun of planning an outing," Ivy says. "Children enjoy learning to use maps, tour guides and menus."

You can also introduce photography, he says.

"Have your child practice first with an old, inexpensive or disposable camera. Plan photo projects about your family, your neighborhood, or places you visit. Display the results."

Above the rising decibels of "This Old Man," music specialist Cenna says summer is a time for fun, new challenges and learning experiences that couldn't happen during the school year.

Maybe parents don't need to cringe after all.

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