Peaceful Hearts Playground

What a wonder-filled week it has been for us; tonight I'm at once exhausted and energized about our Peaceful Hearts Playground

 and our Kindness Rocks Peace Garden.

Photo source: Kids For Peace

Upon our return from winter break, students started working on Kindness Rocks in Art class. Once they all finished painting theirs, we held a Paint For Peace event so that families could also paint a rock for our Peace Garden. 

Here's a sample of how amazing they turned out.
I made a FlipGrid to showcase some of the rocks; click the link and use the password PeaceGarden to view the video clips. 

All of this was prep for the big day on Tuesday, when Friendswood was the ninth stop on the Kids For Peace #KindnessMatters bus tour! Isn't their bus dreamy?

Part of the Kindness Team spent Tuesday beautifying our school grounds with this heart-shaped serenity spot ... 

while the others crafted these beauties for our playful hearts tree!

On Wednesday morning they created this magic. 

That afternoon, students came out with their rally towels in hand ...

to experience the ribbon cutting and celebrate the grand opening of the new state-of-the-art GameTime Challenge Course built in partnership with our PTO and the Kids for Peace Kind Coins campaign contributors.

As you may know, our third-grade meteorologist Jet Stream Jax served as their spokesperson for this year's campaign, so we went on location from the playground a few times this week to talk with students in New Jersey and Montana. What a thrill and joy it was to watch this young role model in action connecting with peers from coast to coast. 

We are forever grateful to all of the school who fundraised with Kids For Peace to give our school family the gift of play as we continue to heal from Hurricane Harvey's fury. Hasbro, a company synonymous with play, is going to match donations until February 15th if you haven't had the chance to contribute to the Kind Coins campaign yet. The Kindness Team's plan is to head to Puerto Rico next, to build a play space there to help them heal. 

I'm hopeful that they'll need a translator.

When I asked Jax to sum up our experience in just three words, 

he eloquently replied without pause,

Live. Love. Play.

If ever you're in the Houston area,

please come and play with us.

UPDATE: Phase 2 of the Peace Garden found us laying bricks and a crushed granite bed so that our serenity spot helps us ... 

to mindfully unwrap the present for a very long time to come.