Hillpoint mom creates hallway art
Published 10:23 pm Friday, March 15, 2013
![Mary Taylor’s Early Start class at Hillpoint Elementary School shows off the ladybug on the classroom door. They are joined by Taylor, Johnnie Adams and Heather Mills, who created the artwork to encourage students at the school who are taking Standards of Learning tests.](https://www.suffolknewsherald.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/19/2013/03/IMG_2433.jpg)
Mary Joyner’s Early Start class at Hillpoint Elementary School shows off the ladybug on the classroom door. They are joined by Joyner, Johnnie Adams and Heather Mills, who created the artwork to encourage students at the school who are taking Standards of Learning tests.
Students at Hillpoint Elementary School have been going down the kindergarten hall even when they didn’t need to lately, some even getting in trouble because they were supposed to be somewhere else.
Attribute it all to Heather Mills, who has made the hall outside her 5-year-old daughter Bailey Apperson’s Early Start classroom burst with color.
She used construction paper, glitter and even paper plates to depict a large ladybug over the classroom’s door, a tree with a girl swinging from it, and flowers with each of the children’s faces on them.
“I just tried to think of something the kids would like to see,” Mills said. “When they see something different, they get so excited.”
Mills said she was inspired by the children’s book “The Secret Garden.”
Nearby classrooms got jealous, creating oversized bumblebees and butterflies over their doors.
Teacher Mary Joyner said she hopes the artwork will help older children de-stress during Standards of Learning testing season.
“It will make them feel good and help their stress,” she said. “This is Early Start’s way of supporting the bigger kids.”