During the 41st annual Student Festival, "The New Girl" was selected for the award out of 6,000 entries. Forty-five other student films were recognized, of which 11 were for elementary schools. The awardees were formally recognized during ceremonies on Saturday, June 2.
About the Film
"The New Girl" tells the timeless story of a girl arriving for her first day at a new school, and the difficulty she has in taking the first step into her new school life.
Sitting on the curb after her mom dropped her off, she wonders what to do next. To her good fortune, she happens to be sitting in front of Lin Howe Elementary School.
The Old and the New
An "old" girl walks up to her, recognizes that she is new to the school, takes her hand and helps her up off the curb.
With a friendly smile, she welcomes the new girl to the school. Then they wander off together into the school building.
The Filmmakers
This short but insightful film was created last year by a group of fourth grade girls at Lin Howe as part of an after-school class on how to use computers and digital video camcorders to give life to their creative imaginations.
Robert Christophe was the film instructor for the class, which was funded by a grant from The Culver Studios.
The Stars
"The New Girl" was written by Maya Lince, and directed by Eliana Pipes.
Helena Rockwell plays the new girl, and Monica Iniguez is the Lin Howe student.
The four girls developed the entire project, story-boarded the scenes, directed, acted, filmed and edited to completion the project.
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A Drummer Brings a Beat-Obesity Plan to El Rincon
Written by Geoff Maleman
World renowned percussionist Paulo Mattioli, who has performed with Kenny Loggins, Lenny Kravitz, Mickey Hart and others, has developed a new strategy to beat childhood obesity, using drums.
He recently brought his program, FitRhythms, to the students of El Rincon Elementary School.
Burning Calories
Clinical research shows the FitRhythms workout program burns more calories than cycling, weight training or tennis. But it doesn’t feel like work at all.
"Kids love to drum and dance,” Mr. Paulo said. “They have no inhibitions. Given a supportive space to exercise their creative expression, they jump to it with joy and passion.”
According to the California Framework for Physical Education: "The goal of the physical educator should be not to identify winners, but to make winners of ordinary students."
FitRhythms hits this goal right on the target because all children can participate successfully.
Can’t Go Wrong?
There are no wrong beats or wrong moves. FitRhythms builds self- esteem in children who are intimidated by competitive team sports. In addition to burning an average of nine calories a minute, the FitRhythms program works the entire body, builds eye-hand co- ordination, cardiovascular capacity, joint mobility, muscular strength and endurance.
Beyond physical conditioning, it teaches kids valuable psycho-social skills — how to interact as a team, the value of diversity and contribution of each individual to the whole.
No Barriers
"Drumming and dance form a universal language that transcends all cultural and social boundaries,” Mr. Paulo said. “FitRhythms builds interpersonal relationships that blossom into friendships, through a co-creative process of group drumming and dance."
"With obesity set to overtake smoking as the No. 1 cause of preventable death in America and the current epidemic of childhood obesity, FitRhythms is a program that could change the way we think about PE.”
