Peanut-Free Field Trip

Krystyne often volunteers at the boys' school. From baking to shopping for peanut-free snacks to chaperoning field trips, she's a regular in the halls.

Recently, Keeghan's cross country group had a meet at another school and Krystyne volunteered to drive some of the students. Before she left, she printed up some small signs on cardstock to place inside the van to mark it as a "peanut-free zone". Since Liam is trace-amount allergic nuts are allowed nowhere near our house or car.

The kids' reactions were cool. They noticed the signs right away, and asked if the stuff that they had brought with them was ok. They thought it was great that there were alternative, peanut-free snacks in the van just in case something needed to be replaced.

First Day Down

First off, I want to apologize for not posting lately. My laptop has been put out of commission and I am taking longer than expected to get things back up and running on an older computer.

Tuesday was the big day. As many parents of peanut-allergic children, we were nervous wrecks the day before and on edge the morning of. But I am happy to report that everything went extremely well.

All of the class lists were posted on the outside walls of the school, and the teachers were mingling about their individual areas of the schoolyard to meet the students and parents. We found each of the boys’ areas and Joseph ran off to play with friends – Grade 6’s won’t wait with their parents :)

Keeghan’s and Liam’s classrooms are across the hall from each other, so we were able to wait in the same area for them to meet with both teachers. When the bell rang, we headed up to Liam’s classroom to help with the morning routine.

The children swapped their outdoor shoes for newer indoor ones and then placed their lunchboxes on a table and shelves outside the classroom.

lunchboxes waiting patiently

Then Liam’s teacher took the class on a tour to show them where the washrooms were – and wash their hands as part of their morning routine – then back to the classroom where Krystyne had prepared a little talk about allergies – we need to get a copy of Allie the Allergic Elephant for Liam. We also had Be a PAL cards (from the PBS Kids’ Hooray for Health activity book) for the teachers to give out. Then Krystyne and I were off to follow up with the Vice Principal.

The really cool thing was that within the novella of take-home notices from the school that night we found the Peanut Alert notice that the Principal drafted based on Krystyne’s letter to parents that she had created for Liam’s Kindergarten class. AND the one-page notice that alerted parents to the fact that there are peanut-allergic students asked (in bold) for cooperation to make the school a peanut-free school.

Liam went through Junior and Senior Kindergarten with no reactions at school – we’re praying that this streak continues … and big brother Joseph has volunteered to be a lunch monitor for Liam’s class again this year, so he’ll help keep his brother safe.