Draw the first thing you run to At a park…
February 24, 2026 - Jackson Street Elementary Second Grade Classes
On February 24th, Side Street Projects led two second-grade classrooms at Jackson Elementary School, one mile from Charles White Park, in a visioning exercise for a public park. Forty-eight students participated in a collaborative art-making activity where each student received four to five paper tiles and drew responses to a series of prompts: what do you run to first in a park, where do your friends and family hang out, what art piece would live in the park, what would make animals and plants happy, and if the park had a theme, what would it be.
Working with pastels, students filled their tiles with swings, monkey bars, slides, trampolines, hammocks, wildflowers, and baseball fields. A couple of students drew large water fountains, splash pads, and winding rivers running through the park for water play and wildlife. For the art piece prompt, some students drew murals of nature and water scenes, and one drew a memorial to historic figures. In other tiles, students drew foxes, squirrels, deer, turtles, frogs, and bees alongside their family members and friends in the park.
After completing their tiles, students cut them up and assembled them into a large, colorful tile mosaic, combining all their drawings into a single vision for a public park. The two murals will be on display at an upcoming school open house, and the ideas generated during the day will inform the design of Charles White Park.
Some takeaways
Many students drew sketches of water, from rivers and fountains to waterparks and splash pads
Students imagined the park as not just a place for humans, but also for habitat, drawing animals like foxes, deer, turtles, frogs, and bees
Students drew castles and houses to crawl inside and scramble on top of. When presenting their work, they discussed wanting to hide, explore, and climb
Swings, slides, and monkey bars were favorites across both classrooms
Students took the prompts in many different directions, from pirate ships to memorials to wildflower fields; each student imagined something entirely different
