Spoonville helps connect communities
The Spoonville craze began in Winnersh, England in order to help improve the mental health of children during the lockdown and has spread across the globe.
It’s a representation of the sense of the school community coming together during COVID-19 restrictions and consists of characters created with wooden spoons that have been bringing gardens to life across West Gippsland.
Several schools have jumped on board including Nilma Primary, Warragul Specialist School, Buln Buln Primary, Drouin West Primary and Warragul North Primary to create Spoonville villages.
Nilma Primary School principal Annette Sutherland thought all schools in the region could get involved.
“We had heard about it and saw it as well, and with the six week lockdown we were entering the last part, we wanted to have a go and help give everyone an extra little spark as we hopefully approach the end of lockdown,” Ms Sutherland said.
Nilma Primary students on site spent time making their own characters, with families dropping off their creations from home while collecting learning packs.
The front garden was transformed with glitter and more than 20 spoons, with more coming soon.
“It’s simply just helping the kids connect. They can see each other’s spoons and enjoy that. It also gives families the opportunity to do something together that isn’t directly related to schoolwork,” Ms Sutherland said.
Drouin West Primary School art teacher Courtney Heath said her school embraced the idea after being invited to contribute by Nilma.
“It really appealed to us, the sense of community connectiveness. Our students haven’t seen each other for a long time, but to see the comments online when I posted the project was fantastic,” Courtney said.
Drouin West’s on-site students have spent an hour of their art classes creating their spoons to go in the garden, with many creative features on show.
“I’ve seen a Santa, Where’s Wally, Harry Potter and one student even created Darth Vader,” Courtney said.
Students involved in the Junior School Student Representative Council (SRC) of St Paul’s Anglican Grammar School also decided to create one but give it its own name to keep the school community connected.
The SRC, who still meet each Friday throughout remote learning via a Teams session, decided their Spoonville would be called ‘Spoontopia’.
It is also growing quickly and students still studying onsite are enjoying being greeted by the community of spoons.
Out at Neerim South, the on-site students have also started their own Spoonville site which Grade 5 student Zac Rhodes said was something fun to participate. “I really like making the spoony character and I think it’s a fun activity for the whole school to join in with,” he said.
“It was a great activity to use your imagination and bring everybody together,” said Grade 3 student Zoe Tomlin.
Buln Buln Primary added its village to the garden.
The task was set by art teacher Nicole Van den Acker who said it had been wonderful to see the creations bring some happiness in what had been a tough time for all.
“Every person who walks past the Spoonville has a bit of joy in their heart when they see the wonderful creations made,” Nicole said.
Warragul North Primary School students participated in ‘Wellness Wednesday’, which saw them avoid screens for the day and turn their attention towards creating their characters.
Principal Corinne Collins said she was extremely proud of how the students took up the task both at school and home.
“The beauty was the children at home delivered them and it was lovely to see the students connect once again through the spoons when they were put in,” she said.