Annual Fall Tulip Planting For Kindergarteners at WES Reaches 10th Year
Post date: Nov 15, 2013 2:37:37 PM
On a cold, blustery November 13th, Wells Elementary School kindergarten students, dressed in winter outdoor clothing, were thinking spring when they planted tulip bulbs around the school’s large courtyard area much like their predecessors have done each fall at Wells Elementary School for the past 10 years.
According to Community Resource Coordinator Maryanne Foley there are different locations around the school picked each year for planting including the bus loop area and areas where the school borders Route 109.
Since 2003, the year the current WES opened, kindergarteners have been planting tulips at the school in anticipation of seeing “their” flowers appear in the spring. They have also planted daffodils, alliums, crocus and hyacinth along with tulips during some of those years.
Each year the Parent Teacher Student Association (PTSA) at WES, has purchased the bulbs for the students.
For about an hour on the afternoon of the 13th, eighty plus students left recess or class in small groups to walk to the courtyard where they received some brief direction on planting and one bulb each to place in a hole dug earlier by a school volunteer.
Assisting Foley and students were school volunteers Matt Cox, Amy Cyr, Diane Johnson, Lori Butters, Lauri Godin and Lorraine Randall.
“It gives them an introduction to growing plants; to see something come up in the soil after they’ve planted it,” said volunteer Johnson about the kindergarteners planting tulip bulbs. “It’s just a good intro. In the spring, when they have forgotten all about it…all of a sudden they say, ‘Oh wow. I did that’.”
Caption: At center is WOCSD Resource Coordinator Maryanne Foley holding up a tulip bulb for a group of kindergarteners about to plant tulip bulbs in the courtyard area of Wells Elementary School. To the left of Foley is school volunteer Lauri Godin.
Caption: WOCSD Resource Coordinator Maryanne Foley speaking to a group of kindergarteners about to plant tulip bulbs in the courtyard area of Wells Elementary School.
Two kindergarten students planting tulip bulbs at Wells Elementary School on November 13, 2013.