OMAK — The writing assignment was OK. The books they made were fun.

But what students in Vicki Kiefer’s fourth-grade class at Paschal Sherman Elementary School said they enjoyed most was spending time with the college kids who led the whole thing.

“It’s really fun. I learned new games. And I learned Spanish words, like red is rojo,” said 9-year-old Erika Romero.

Raynbo Abrahamson, 10, titled her book “Good Morning Games.” Why that title? “Because Nuvia and Clare taught me how to play them on Monday, at recess,” she said, drawing pictures in the book that will be combined with other stories and published by the University of Washington.

Nuvia Chavez and Clare Morrison were among 40 UW students who spent their spring break March 21-25 at schools across the state, working with about 700 younger students and leading literacy and environmental projects. Another 99 students shadowed health care professionals in 23 counties as part of the program.

Chavez, a 22-year-old senior, has participated in the Alternative Spring Break project four years in a row.

For Morrison, a 20-year-old freshman, it was her first experience. “I feel like it’s a different kind of learning,” Morrison said about teaching the students.

Both said they would have a hard time at week’s end leaving the students at Paschal Sherman, the majority of whom are members of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation. They stayed in the tribal school’s campus dorm, and spent their recess, lunch and free time with them.

“I just really love working with the kids, and it’s a totally different culture,” Morrison said.

“It’s cool how much they appreciate their traditions,” Chavez added, noting the book topics included learning to carve, draw a wolf, dance at a powwow or weave a basket. Others wrote about learning to play football, go sledding or ride a four-wheeler.

Chavez and Morrison worked with several different classes, first helping students plan and write a short story that described something they learned, and then putting it all together in a book with pictures.

Morrison said without the UW program, she would have spent spring break at home on Vashon Island.

Chavez, too, said she didn’t exactly turn down a week on the beach in Florida or Mexico to come to Omak.

“We don’t go on vacations in my family. I’d just be in Yakima,” she said.

But her four years of working with students in different parts of the state each spring has made a big difference in her life, she said.

Instead of becoming a teacher, she’s looking at counseling. “I like working one-on-one,” she said, adding, “This definitely helped me decide.”

Christine Stickler, the program’s director, said she continually hears from students about the impact the experience had on their career choices.

“I really have come to see that it’s a chance to study abroad, at home,” she said. Many of the students who participate know only the urban area in Western Washington.

“To travel to these rural and tribal communities really gives them a chance to gain a different perspective,” she said.

And for the younger students, getting to know a college student as a real person just like them may plant a seed for their futures, Stickler said. “If they’re not thinking about it, they see that college could be an option for them.”

If the kids they’re working with are in middle or high school, the UW students also talk to them about the application process, and explain to them that if their grades are good enough, they can get help with tuition if their family can’t afford to send them.

This year was UW’s 11th year to offer its students the alternative break.

Kiefer said the Paschal Sherman school has been a host school for the program for many years.

She said she notices her students enjoy working on a short project that has a deadline, and a completed book after just one week. “The college students have just been on task with them, zooming along,” she said.

The kids also get to see their work published in a larger book with writings from other students across the state.

They often look at past publications and see what their older siblings, cousins or friends have written, she said.

But what’s most striking, Kiefer said, is the strong bonds that some of them develop with the UW students after just one week.

By the third day, Morrison and Chavez knew all the student’s names as they helped them work to illustrate their books.

Miranda Clark, whose book was about learning to dry deer meat, had a pile of pictures of nice big bucks ready to glue in her book.

“You could also draw some deer meat,” Morrison suggested.

“Could you help me?” Clark asked.

“But I don’t know what deer meat looks like!” the UW freshman said with a laugh.

K.C. Mehaffey: 997-2512

mehaffey@wenatcheeworld.com