Detailed rainforest theme artwork at Whitman Post Elementary and Rockton Grade School
The project was one of several that rounded out the school year in the month of May 2026.
Brady Schneider and Kayla Wieman created an eye catching coloring tree that graced the hallway of Whitman Post Elementary School on Thursday evening, May 7, 2026. This project is one of nearly 1,500 that were on display, just in Whitman Post Elementary School alone.
Schneider and Wieman said, “We did this project because we wanted to capture the colors of the rainbow.”
In his 24th year, Mr. Dan Enderle taught students what they should know about different animals and their classifications, and other living things to incorporate into the rainforest via their artwork.
Rainforests are dense, warm, and highly wet ecosystems characterized by a continuous tree canopy and exceptionally high rainfall amounts. They harbor more than half of the world’s plant and animal species and are vital for regulating global climate, maintaining freshwater supplies and producing oxygen.
Different types of rainforests include Tropical, and temperate. There are four layers of a rainforest, emergent, upper canopy, understory and the forest floor.
It is said that there are over 400 species living in the rain forest.
Land mammals found in the rainforest include the Jaguar, sloth, capybara, South American Tapir, and primates which includes various types of monkeys.
In the aquatic life Amazon River Dolphins, Red-Bellied Piranhas, Electric eels, and Giant River Otter can be found.
Bird varieties can range from the Scarlet Macaw, to a Toco Toucan, a Happy Eagle, and a Hoatzin.
Poisson Dart Frogs, Black Caiman and Green Anaconda are among reptiles .
Student Sonia Ballard made a clay lizard.
Harrison Williams created a dimensional gorilla out of Lego’s.
Rows of construction cones, sketches, 3-D pieces, drawings, and colorful designs on paper plates that just tapped the surface of art styles that covered part of walls and tables in the hallway.
Down in Rockton Grade School photos of students saw the caption, “Guess Who “at the top of each.
Guess who is a happy horse, The Jitterbug, an Excellent Elephant, a hedge hog, a Brilliant Bear or a Leaping Leopard. This only tapped into a few art pieces from the 3,000 that were on display.
RGS art teacher, April Graves stayed kept up with the tradition of handing out key chains to the students.
Featured were stunning creations on canvas. “I wrote a grant to allow every child to be able to paint on a canvas, “Graves said. We were able to do this due to the R.E.E.F Foundation giving us $450.
Graves added, “We featured styling of French artists such as Paul Clay Kandiski, or modern artist, Piet Mondrian.
One of the pieces in the Henri Matise Gallery was, “The Gold Fish Bowl.”
Matisse is famous for revolutionizing modern art through his brilliant use of color and simplified forms. After a trip to Morocco in 1912 Matisse used goldfish in aquariums as motif in his art. He also included goldfish is various still life scenarios often as a feature found in depictions of his various studios rather than being the focus of his pieces.
An outstanding piece was a hat made out of pipe cleaners.
With a photo being worth 1,000 words ,students whose “Amazing Artwork”was on loan to the Rockford Art Museum from April 12 until May 10, 2026 was framed, complete with photos of the students holding their creations.
Adding to a fun evening for parents, students, staff and the community were specialty snacks to go along with the rainforest theme.
Visitors were also able to choose a new book to purchase at a book fair in the school's library where a Scholastic Book Fair took place.
