Students at the King Traditional Elementary School have another reason to be excited for the dreary weather of winter to be over with, after planting 600 flower bulbs on the school grounds.
Students from kindergarten to Grade 5 took part in the project, said kindergarten teacher Mallory Blake, adding in an email that her class is “SO excited for spring.”
“My hope was that planting the bulbs would get the students connected to and appreciating nature and teach them how to care for the environment,” Blake said.
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The 600 bulbs were donated to Blake’s class by Bulbs4Kids, and shared with the rest of the participating classes.
According to its website, Bulbs4Kids is “a campaign meant to acquaint kids in elementary schools with the world of nature by means of interesting activities that are also fun.”
“Research has shown that this contributes to a child’s sound healthy development.”
Blake added that Joe Yurick of Buckerfields in Abbotsford “generously donated” six bags of organic soil for the school to use for the project.
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Blake said the kindergarten class applied to receive the flower bulb kit last spring, adding the class to a total of 84 Canadian classes, 424 in the Netherlands, 841 in Germany, 672 in England and 265 in France participating in the flower bulb project this year.
“When the tulips, crocuses, daffodils and grape hyacinths start blooming early in the spring, the school grounds will be bursting with colour,” Blake said.
And the Bulbs4Kids program comes with a competition, too. The winning class gets a grand prize – the 2019 Golden Flower Bulb and a lesson about flower bulbs.
In a statement, Blake also pointed to “more and more studies … confirming the beneficial effects that the natural world has on our health.”
“Playing in a natural environment and having hands-on experiences with plants contributes to the healthy balanced development of children. It makes children smarter, fitter and more creative. The problem, however, is that urbanization has meant that the distance between people and natural environments has never been greater.”