The Friendship School

We have an existing maintenance crew that takes care of the playgrounds. They refill the sandboxes, add wood chips, mow the grass and weed the beds. Teachers repainted all the signs and added new ones as needed. Materials were added as needed to the sorting table, along with scarves, art supplies and gardening tools.

The garden committee picked out plants for the garden and the beds were planted with seasonal flowers and vegetables. We assigned the planting beds, one each to every three classrooms. Each group chose a bed and planted and decorated it to match a book or song, in a miniature. We had a Jack and the Beanstalk bed planted with beans, a small wooden castle and golden eggs placed about.

A Swan Harbor with a lighthouse, seashells and flowers were planted to look like a coastal lagoon and “A Beautiful World” with clouds, a rainbow and small items made of foam from the song and flowers. In all we had ten beds decorated in this manner.

The students were involved with planting, choosing the decorations and setting up the beds. There were many hand crafted items, ink stampings of insects and painted rocks. This was a popular school wide activity that we are planning to implement again for next year.

Brenda Cornell, Preschool Teacher