Some photos of Margaret at QGAP
Margaret Whewall goes beyond the description of “Volunteer Extraordinaire”. Since her first visit to Queenstown after retiring from her own kindergarten classroom in 2006, Margaret has dedicated her time, energy and personal finances to the youngest learners at Get Ahead Project Schools.
Margaret has since been back to Get Ahead five times and each time her expertise is appreciated and she continues to make a huge difference in the preschool classrooms. On one of her recent visits she experienced the rapid construction of the new preschool building and was sure to return early in 2012 to help support the teachers in the early set up of the new learning environment.
The new building is fantastic as it provides lots of creative learning space for the young learners. The teacher is now able to ogranize centres in the classroom to encourage independent learning and engage young minds. To compliment this fantastic indoor learning space the outdoor facilities include a huge jungle gym, sand boxes as well a field area for the children to play soccer, frisbee and various other sporting activities. As you can see from the pictures above, there is also a paved area that children can ride scooters on which is a favourite for everyone, Margaret included!
Scooters!
Another fantastic initiative that Margaret has taken on is to create a little “GAPPS Garden” where the children take responsibility to care for the flowers and vegetables that are grown. Before Margaret returned to Toronto, she was watering a planter filled with petunias when one of the children offered to continue caring for the petunias while Margaret was back in Canada.
Thank you Margaret for all that you do!
