A concern for other students’ well-being prompted a Bellefontaine Elementary School club to pursue a special project this school year that they hope will offer a way for future pupils to make new friends and feel included with their peers.
Members of Bellefontaine Elementary School’s Friendship Club try out their new “Buddy Benches” Monday that have been installed on the school’s two playgrounds to assist students with making new friends. (PHOTO | BELLEFONTAINE ELEMENTARY) |
This week, 22 members of the school’s Friendship Club unveiled two new “buddy benches” that they pieced together from kits this spring. The benches have been installed at the school’s two playgrounds — one for kindergarten students and the other for first- and second-graders.
Club co-adviser and school guidance counselor Lindsey Maus said she first heard about buddy benches in a Teaching Tolerance magazine, and then offered the idea to club members, who decided they wanted to bring the benches to their school.
The idea is when students need someone to play with, they can sit on the buddy bench and when other children see them sitting there, they can sit down with them and ask them to play together.
“Our goal was to make our school a better place,” kindergartner Nolan Slayback said. “We hope it will help kids make friends and not be lonely.”
Read complete story in Wednesday’s Examiner.
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