The Washington Post awarded the grants as part of its Grants in the Arts program for spring semester projects. A committee of educators and arts leaders in the Washington metro area chose the recipients from among applicants from public and private schools in school districts throughout the metro area who submitted proposals to the Post in the fall.

The Montgomery County Public Schools recipients are:

- Michelle Miller, art teacher, Brown Station ES: $500 for a Book and Paper Making project, in which every student will participate in papermaking and one type of bookmaking to gain knowledge and appreciation of these arts and how they connect to reading and writing.

- Belle Scheibner and Robin Thomas, PTA cultural arts co-chairpersons, Cedar Grove ES: $300 for a Poet-in-Residence who will expose students to the process of producing various styles of poetry through reading, writing, speaking and listening, thus enriching the fourth grade language arts curriculum.

- Ivette Burgess, art teacher, Fairland ES: $300 to buy gourds and other materials for third grade students to make gourd instruments. The project will integrate the arts with the core curriculum as students study the gourd instruments of South America and Africa, create their own instruments and use them to perform for parents and the community.

- Ming-Yi Sung, art teacher, Fallsmead ES: $500 for the Outdoor Sculpture project, in which fifth graders will learn about sculpture design concepts, then build individual models for the school population to choose a design to be constructed in the school courtyard by all fifth grade students.

- Alberta Fisher, fourth grade classroom teacher, and Debbie Scesa, music teacher, Farmland ES: $500 for the Creating Original Opera interdisciplinary project, in which students will write, produce and perform an original opera as the La Clevique Kids Opera Company.

- Lois Rothman, art teacher, Farmland ES: $498 for the Art and Science Connections-Studying Weights/Balance project, in which second grade students will study mobile artist Alexander Calder to understand how weight and mass of objects affect balance, then create object mobiles and sculptures in Calder's style.

- Marcia Summers, music teacher, and Kelly Rudin, PTA member and co-chairperson for international night, Goshen ES: $456 for the African Rhythm Experience project, which will include a performance by an African group and the purchase of African rhythm instruments. The multicultural experience will provide an ongoing enrichment opportunity for students and the community, beginning with Goshen's International Night and extending into the general music program.

- Margaret Gearin, art teacher; Jed Feffer, third/fourth grade teacher; and Robbie Dodd, fourth grade teacher; Highland View ES: $500 for the Silver Spring Shadow Theater Project, in which students will work with a shadow puppeteer performance artist to create and produce an original shadow theater performance.

- Sara Josey, music technology and piano keyboard teacher, Montgomery Blair HS: $500 for Listen to Me, an interdisciplinary project in which students in all piano classes will record music they have learned during the year onto CDs and create CD jackets that will include a cover design, an autobiography of the performer and research on the music.

- Nori Thorne, art teacher; Marc Davidson and Erin Michener, music teachers; and Laura Bodin, foreign language teacher, John Poole MS: $300 for the Friday Afternoon on the Banks of the Middle School Pond, for which students will recreate Seurat's "Sunday Afternoon on Le Grande Jatte," with life-sized figures painted in the pointillist method and arranged along the banks of the school pond. Math students will calculate the grid, music students will perform period pieces, and French students will perform a skit.

- Josepha Robles, magnet coordinator, Rolling Terrace ES: $466 to support the Culture in Quilts after-school project, in which students will learn about different cultures and kinds of quilts and work with a professional quilter to make quilt pieces based on multicultural themes. The project integrates mathematics and culture.

- Jennifer Clowser, art teacher, and Norma Abdul-Rahim, music teacher, Sligo Creek ES: $500 for the Music of the Americas project, in which students in kindergarten through grade 5 will learn about and make musical instruments traditionally used by native peoples in South, Central and North America. Each grade will create different instruments, then play them in a school-wide concert.

- Carla Arnold, art teacher, Sligo MS: $500 for Yen for Japan, an integrated academic arts/computer curriculum in which seventh graders will study Japanese culture, visit a museum and participate in a workshop with a Japanese performing artist. An artist-in-residence program with a Japanese woodblock printer will serve selected students. All students will study and create Japanese arts and see a performance involving Japanese theater, kimonos, calligraphy and dance.

- Elizabeth Moffett, art teacher, Takoma Park ES: $500 for the Aboriginal Didgeridoo: The Art of Sound project, in which second grade students will complete a unit on the Australian didgeridoo by creating their own didgeridoo and learning how to play it under the direction of an artist-in-residence.

- Ruth Gainer, art teacher; Allyson Morrison, PTA president; and Maureen Hammond, music teacher, Whetstone ES: $500 for the Whetstone's Illustrated Treasury of Songs and Stories-Volume I project, in which students will create an anthology of nursery rhymes, poems, songs and stories recalled by parents and grandparents from their childhood. Fourth and fifth graders will bind 500 copies of the anthology for distribution at International Night, where students also will share selections from the book.