By Aleksandra Bliszczyk
Lancefield Primary School students and parents connected with each other during lockdown via a Spoonville village of hand-crafted characters.
While the students can’t be physically together, their spoon characters can be, thanks to the activity that was part of the school’s wellbeing Wednesdays program.
Principal Joanne Emond said the spoon decorating idea was intended as something fun to foster a sense of school community.
“We sent out instructions and said if you’d like to participate all you need is a wooden spoon, scraps, paint materials and your imagination,” she said.
But after a few days she said they were ‘inundated’.
“One of our parents is the manager of Romsey IGA and they said they ran out of wooden spoons,” Ms Emond said.
The dozens of spoons, which families have dropped off at the school, are painted as people, animals, rockstars, dragons, aliens and more, and are now on display in a school window for passers by.
The figures are also lit up at night and are hung next to a poster that reads: Community is about doing something together that makes belonging matter.
“Our first idea was to stick them in the garden but they’re so beautiful, so now what we’ve done is put them in the window of my office that looks out onto the main road,” Ms Emond said.
Acknowledging that lockdowns continue challenge families with young children, Ms Emond said the activity has been well-received by parents and that it was as much for them as it was for the students.
“You can see that the kids have had help, and that’s the whole point,” she said.
“Our families are amazing and our mantra is do what you can, when you can. The teachers work really hard to support [everyone] because it’s tough and people get tired. It’s important that we think of new ways of engaging kids.”
