Reclaiming the Playground

My classroom has some of the best windows in the school - we have a bird's eye view of the playground. It is always entertaining to peer out the window around lunch time and watch the kids at play. It is a sight that, until today, I hadn't seen since December.

Back in December, we had a huge snow storm. The snow was cleared from the sidewalks and parking-lots around the school. The problem with clearing the snow though, was that it had to go... somewhere. And this year, the somewhere for us was directly in the middle of the path to the playground. 13+ inches of cleared snow can make for a pretty large pile. I know the pile was close to 5 feet tall. I am going to guess it was about 15 feet wide. It was a large pile. Since the temperature has rarely passed 30 degrees in the last 3 months, the pile has not shrunk at all. We can hardly remember the last time the kids could go out to play on the playground.

Enter - our 6th grade teacher. She took a big problem and made an amazing, teachable moment from it. At her direction, the staff all volunteered their snow shovels and the 6th grade students went outside to attack the pile. It wasn't easy work - the pile was pretty much solid ice. But the kids worked very hard. They chipped away at it for close to 3 hours. There were "choppers" and "shovelers" and even a "brigade" of students to shuffle the larger chunks out of the way.

The project had so many positive benefits. Amazing things can be learned from hard work in the fresh air. As the younger grades gleefully rushed out to recess today, the 6th graders saw the amazing joy their hard work had created. They saw how much can be accomplished by working together. It is something they are very proud of - as they should be. I hope they remember for quite a while the time they reclaimed the playground from the gods of winter!