Years in planning and mere weeks in play, a completely refurbished playground at Middle Gate Elementary School hosted a ribbon cutting ceremony attended by its smallest students.

Current Middle Gate PTA President Ella Iscyzyszyn explained the playground was made possible by allotments from the Board of Education, grant funding, and ten thousand dollars raised by the PTA.

“We were sitting on a lot of money that needed to be put to work,” said David Stott, previous PTA president at the school.

“Most of these kids are still here, so it’s great they got to raise it, and now they’re enjoying it” said Iscyzyszyn, referring to the children enrolled at Middle Gate during the inception of the project.

Middle Gate Principal Chris Geissler noted the kindergartners had no experience with the decidedly outdated equipment.

The class had been enjoying the new equipment since school began — it was their “normal.”

To witness the ceremony, kindergarten classes gathered in a crescent around the equipment where the wood chips of the playground met the blacktop area.

One end of the ribbon was fastened to the main structure of the playground, and the other end was held aloft by Facilities Director John Barlow.

“My shout out is really to my maintenance staff,” said Barlow in an earlier conversation with The Newtown Bee. “They prepped the site along with public works and the parks department.”

He added he was glad to see the kids engaging with the equipment, and that Bob Gerbert, his predecessor, started the project process.

Before the ribbon could be cut, Geissler and both PTA presidents spoke.

“All these activities that we do — it helps us give back to you guys,” she said to the kindergartners, referring to the PTA’s role in the school.

“The old playground was older than probably most of your teachers,” said Stott during his turn, telling the classes the equipment was over 30 years old.

The countdown to the cutting sounded like a musical round as the kindergartners counted from ten at different rates, eliciting laughter from a few of the ribbon-holders also trying to count.

As soon as the ribbon fell, the area experienced an immediate rush of recess-bound kindergartners.

From the shrieks and screams they emitted, it seemed their weeks-long familiarity with the equipment did not seem to deter any excitement.

The new playground contains a diverse assortment of structures for children to run between in their recess exploration.

The main, large structure has many avenues to climb up, a bridge, a curvy slide, and two vertical slides with constant traffic.

Beside it are large, three-dimensional and ten-sided shapes. These are stacked so the children can freely climb in or around.

There was a seesaw that was always occupied by several kindergartners at once throughout the recess period, and small bowl-like structures designed for one child to spin and another child to ride.

Included in the new equipment are four swings. According to Geissler, the school was waiting on one more pair of swings to be shipped and complete the set.

“They learn so much out of it. They learn how to play, take turns, communicate, wait patiently,” said Geissler about the playground as he indicated to a child waiting their turn for a slide.

Shouts of joy and giddy expressions filled the playground in its inhabitants until the whistle was blown for recess to be over.

Reporter Noelle Veillette can be reached at noelle@thebee.com.