About to begin her twelfth summer as a physical training teacher at Summer Academy, Barb Wnek still enjoys the challenge of integrating her coursework to the themes taught elsewhere in the curriculum. The Ferguson-Florissant P.E. teacher says "the kids are so bright and talented, it makes the summer really fun."

"I really enjoy the thematic approach to learning," she says. "I'm always developing new curriculum to build on what the kids are doing the rest of the day." For example, last year the topic for Ancient Academy was China. Barb taught the children how to do Chinese Ribbon Dances and Chinese jump rope. A few years ago, when Ancient Academy focused on Egypt, one of the activities she developed was 'mummy wrapping relay races.' "We also use music almost all the time," she adds.

"All the kids, all ages, in Summer Academy get PT every day. So the other PT teacher, Mike Moore and I get to do a lot of fun things with them," Barb continues. "We have enough time during the session to use the kids' problem-solving skills, to reinforce their math, science and other academic abilities with physical experience and teamwork."

Barb explains her enthusiasm for developing new lessons. "It's something in my personality. I like to be creative. If I'm bored, I do something different. The kids never know what I'm going to do next. One day maybe I'll go to a beauty supply store and get a bunch of Styrofoam heads to use as alien heads. In Space Academy we explore what it's like in a different environment by turning out the lights and conducting activities to strobe lights."

In addition to teaching full-time and working for Summer Academy for 12 years, Barb has written a book, "Holiday Games and Activities," in which she explains thematic ideas for holiday games and activities. She has also had an article about the activities she developed for Space Academy appear in the Journal of the American Alliance of Health, PE, Recreation and Dance.

"Ever since I was a little kid, in Central Florida in the 60s, I've been a space buff. We watched Mercury, Gemini and Apollo launches from my driveway," David Linder explains. "I feel very privileged that now I get to teach these bright young people about the things that were so exciting to me at the same age." David teaches first and second graders in Summer Academy. Including this summer, David has been teaching Space Academy for 11 years. He also has taught several Learning Lab classes.

"One of the strongest benefits of Summer Academy is that it can open a child's mind. So many kids come to the program thinking there's only one right answer; too often their thinking has been too controlled. It's exciting to allow - even encourage - divergent thinking. Frequently when kids come for the first time, they're really surprised."

"I enjoy the opportunity to use my creativity to develop projects that teach "real" science in a way that will stay with the kids. One of my favorite projects is when the students develop extraterrestrial life-forms." Students either invent or receive the hypothetical planet their life-forms come from, then factor in what the conditions are on the planet, including geological and meteorological, surface gravity, density, distance of the planet from its star, and the type of star. They imagine, invent, justify and create their life-forms. Students create a written language for intelligent life-forms. "They create phonetic symbols to represent sounds and they come up with words which could be nouns, verbs, adjectives, or other parts of speech. A few of the kids take it so far as to start speaking in a new language," David explains.

During the rest of the year David teaches a program he developed for elementary students. In small group settings, David conducts classes in English vocabulary building using Latin roots, prefixes and suffixes. He also is the exclusive U.S. distributor for some innovative, contemporary French song audio cassettes for elementary through high school students.