last september bear started school. it is a brand new school, with sparkly new hall ways and classrooms, with kindergarten rooms with their own washrooms. there was an old school there that was demolished and brand spanking new one was rebuilt in a year!

we are very pleased with the school. but, there are some drawbacks of sending your kid to a brand new school. for example, the bigger kids have no playground to play in during recess and lunch. the kindies have a separate yard with simple, natural play structures like logs for balancing on and stumps for climbing on. it’s really nice and the kids love it!


so….

a sub-committee at our school, the green committee took matters into their own hands and purchased the older kids (grades 1-8) some toys and sports equipment to play with. we were given about $2000 and one of the mom’s went out and purchased these beautiful toys for the kids. these pictures are of us labelling and sorting the items. each classroom gets their own mesh bag filled with various lengths of skipping rope, different kinds of sports balls (football, soccer, tennis), hacky sacks, crochet frisbees and other fun items. these bags of equipment are meant for use by the kids during recess and lunch, not for physical education or any curriculum based learning.

look at these beautiful, colourful bags filled with potential excitement and hours of fun! this project shows that is doesn’t take much to make a big difference in the quality of the children’s lies at school! i am so proud of the work done here by women wanting to improve the kids’ time at school; i am honoured to be a part of such strong, intelligent, resourceful and hilarious group of people! 

if you have kids in school, consider helping out. everyone is busy and tired, but these volunteer based committee’s and parent councils are such an important part of the school community. it’s not fair or reasonable to assume that other parents will just get the job done, or leave it up to the stay-at-home parents to organize and plan special events. as with any community, the kids benefit so much when parents are involved, ALL of the kids benefit!