The Jumping Frogs: Jump Time Students’ Reactions to the Program

Scroggs Elementary School’s new after-school enrichment program, Jump Time, has leaped off to a good start after making some minor changes in the second session to better serve the student participants.

Fifty-two Scrogg’s students participate in Jump Time, a two-hour program created with grant money from the North Carolina Department of Education. Students meet in elective groups for the first hour and go to tutoring during the second hour.

Since its start in September, Jump Time has added a proficiency specialist to its ranks and new electives programs such as “Moving towards Fitness,” which is led by YMCA staff.

Jump Time’s coordinator, Adam Eigenrauch, and site supervisor, Jane Lee, are pleased with how things are going so far but they would both agree that the children’s reactions speak louder than their adult observations.

A visit Wednesday afternoon proved this to be true.

Miguel Cervantes, a fourth-grader, took a few minutes out of his “Shapes, Puzzles and Games” elective where he was making a star ornament out of string and cardboard to share what his experience has been like as a Jump Timer. Cervantes said he has learned how to use a camera in his Photography elective, which he goes to on Tuesdays. He is proud of the photos he has taken as he boasted, “I had a friend take one of me falling out of swing."

Thursdays are a little less active because Cervantes takes Chess as his elective. He said it is fun even though he already knew how to play.

“I didn't know all of the pieces before and now I do. I don’t have a chess board at home so I don’t get to play there,” Cervantes said.

As Markita Harper painted a butterfly in her “Art World” elective, she echoed Cervantes’ comments about Jump Time being fun. She shared a similar reason.

“I don’t have any paints or paintbrushes at home so I can’t paint there. But I really like doing it here,” Harper, a fourth-grader, said right before she raised her hand to ask the art teacher to add some black paint to her paper plate palette.

Instead of squeezing black paint out of a tube, Ms. Carroll mixed several colors together and explained to the class that black was the absence of color, pointing to the classroom’s black television as an example.

“And actually white is made up from all the colors,” quipped another student sitting across the room.

Student participation is at the heart of Jump Time, whether it is students having a yelling contest in Tae Kwon Do or first-graders gathered around plastic bowls of water as they make papier-mâché dishes.

The class sizes are purposely small—around 12 students per elective—to encourage children to ask the teachers for help and get individual attention, Eigenrauch said.

Providing one-on-one help with academics is the main reason Jump Time received $299,000 in grant money. The electives are entertaining and introduce children to activities they might not have otherwise encountered; however, students were chosen to be in Jump Time because they need a boost with academics, Lee said.

Wednesday afternoon Lee worked with four students correcting sentences and solving math problems on the dry erase board.

“What’s wrong with this sentence: 'have you ever went skiing near denver colorado'?” Miss Lee asked Alex, George, Audrey and Crystal.

“Capitalize the “h”… “Went should be gone”… “There should be a comma between Denver and Colorado,” the group answered.

Freshmen Teaching Fellows at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill also help out with Jump Time tutoring.

Melissa McLaney and LaToya Terry spend one hour every week sitting in tiny chairs at low tables, playing word games and reading with first-graders who are performing at lower reading levels than their classmates.

The two future teachers, who both want to work with older students when they graduate, said they are learning universal teaching skills, especially patience, by volunteering.

“Sometimes it’s hard to put yourself in their shoes when they are struggling to figure out the word ‘boat’ and you know it without even thinking about it,” McLaney said. “I just sit there and encourage them as they figure it out.”

The ultimate test of Jump Time’s success will be determined by the students’ performances on the end-of-grade tests, Lee said.

“We want a child who is not proficient in math to become proficient in math. The same goes for a child who is not proficient in writing or reading. We want them to prove what they have learned by doing well on the end-of-grade tests,” Lee said.

So far, parents and teachers have been pleased with the program, according to Eigenrauch. As program coordinator, he is working on a way to get more formal feedback than just the comments he heard in conversations after the first six-week session.

After hearing complaints from some of the students about getting home in the dark and not being able to play outside, Eigenrauch and Lee are trying to divide the bus route into two separate runs. Adding a second bus will cost more money, which means that change might have to wait until next year.

In the meantime, Jump Timers will continue to make plastic cup puppets, go on nature walks, write for the school's newspaper and improve their academic skills.

It's not a bad deal according to fourth-grader Rasheed Harper.

"My favorite time is when I get to work on my homework. Then I don't have to do it home," he said.

Sources:

Jane Lee and Adam Eigenrauch: 918-7165

UNC students Melissa McLaney and LaToya Terry

Jump Time students

Jump Time instructors