Spring is a time for bees and buds and blossoms. It seems that everything is in motion, including my students. We’ve passed the time of settled in and are now in the time of change. Plants are sprouting in all the shades of green and my students are sprouting in all the volumes of loud. There is so much they need to say: to each other, to me, to anyone passing by.

Roly polies have become their latest obsession. Those tiny pill bugs are everywhere. And my students are intent on “saving” them (or squishing them, depending on the student). What was once a line of first graders walking to class has now become a mob of children on hands and knees scooping up these little curled crustaceans to protect them from the feet of their peers. Except instead of just moving them to a safer place than the hallway sidewalk, these small creatures often find themselves tucked into pockets and backpacks, or being “petted” by a soft 7-year-old finger on its ribbed back.

In science they are studying birds: their beaks, their feet, their wings. And considering how those parts work together to help the birds survive. In class we took balls of clay, used the meaty part of the side of our hands to flatten and shape them, and crafted our own ceramic birds. A mistake on my part means that the feet they molded will not be attached…but that is another story.

In spring students show off. They strut their stuff. Confidence levels are spiking. They are testing the limits, the boundaries, the rules, their own abilities. It’s the most wonderful time of the year and the hardest season for teaching. But sunshine helps, clay helps, and carefully constructed classroom community prevails…even in spring.

Skies filled with chirping

birds, textured rainbowed feathers

handmade, formed from clay