SALT LAKE CITY — The kindergarten class at J.E. Cosgriff Memorial Catholic Elementary School enjoyed a special coalition this past school year with other students – though not just with other classes at J.E. Cosgriff. In a special project, kindergartners from the I.J. & Jeanne Wagner Jewish Community Center teamed with kindergartners at J.E. Cosgriff to build relationships and learn about community. Teachers at the schools planned a curriculum together for the two classes. The unit included writing, drawing, math, language arts, and celebrating likenesses and diversities. The children participated in an activity twice per month through the school year. The project came to a conclusion May 23, 2006, when kindergartners from J.E. Cosgriff took a trip to meet their friends and pen pals at the Jewish Community Center. "We have tied our activities in with our curriculum," said Mary Markosian, Development Director at J.E. Cosgriff. "We have integrated math, literacy, social studies, writing, acceptance, and most of all community building," she said. Among the many projects shared by the schools, students participated in drawing self portraits, creating and analyzing graphs of pets, hair, and eye color of other students, sharing pictures of the students’ classrooms to compare same and different, and packing a sharing bag of items from the schools. The J.E. Cosgriff sharing bag included a religion book, tiger, and student uniform. "One of our students’ favorite moments was learning about Hanukkah from the JCC while they learned about Christmas from us," said Markosian. "It was a great opportunity to point out that although our religions might be different, we are still kindergartners learning about the world."
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