Onanole students, staff celebrate ‘exciting’ playground upgrade
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 28/10/2016 (3445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
Onanole has its own little natural wonder of the world.
Onanole School’s natural playground is officially open after years of preparation.
“It was a very long process — it took lots of fundraising, went through lots of plan changes, and it took a lot of learning about what goes into a natural playground,” principal Pam Ryznar said.
The project started in 2012, when the time had come to replace the existing play structure, Ryznar said. After doing some research, the parent group committee discovered natural playgrounds.
“We just fell in love with the concept … we thought it fit well with our school beliefs and plans as well as within the community,” Ryznar said.
The idea behind natural playgrounds is to encourage natural and creative play by allowing kids to use their imagination, Ryznar said. It uses as many natural elements and materials as possible by incorporating rocks, grass, trees and landscape into the playground.
“The kids love it,” Ryznar said. “Part of the reason this appealed to me is that we have a kindergarten to Grade 8 school. On the old play structure … the Grade 8 students didn’t use the space in the same way the younger students did. Everyone is on (the new structure), everyone is playing together and I’ve noticed a lot of helping one another.”
Students were a huge part of the designing process.
“The kids suggested elements they wanted to see, and most of those elements were incorporated into this play space,” Ryznar said.
One of those elements was a hill that could be used as a toboggan run in the winter.
“Every year we have a pile of snow pushed up in our field area and that’s what all the kids just flock to … So the kids are very excited to be able to use (the natural playground) as a sliding hill,” Ryznar said.
The official ribbon cutting took place on Monday, and the community came together for a potluck dinner. The kids sang songs with the words altered to honour the playground’s debut, Ryznar said.
“It’s a huge joy to finally see the kids able to play on the space. It’s very exciting.”
» edebooy@brandonsun.com
» Twitter: @erindebooy