Brighten Your Day

During Plant Week, my Kindergarten students learn all about the importance of plants in our lives, the different kinds of plants in our area, and (their favorite) how plants grow. Each student got their very own little terra cotta planter and were shown how to fill them with dirt, plant seeds, and water them. So we did our activity in the classroom, they filled them up with dirt, they had so much putting the seeds in, and the next step was to take them just outside of classroom and water each of them before we went to recess.

One student in particular, bless his heart, was still a little behind on his motor skills, and pretty much flooded his planter when trying to water it. His classmates snickered, of course, which really upset him, and I had to intervene and assure him that he would be able to redo his flower pot when we came back from recess. Well, little did we all know that his pot was going to have an unexpected sprout.

Of course, being late spring in Mississippi, it was an especially hot afternoon. So as we were approaching our door from recess, which takes us right past their flower pots, I hear this thrilled "Miss Welch, Miss Welch!! Look what's coming out of my flower pot!!"...

Being that it had only been about an hour since we planted the seeds, I had NO idea what I was about to see. But there it was, a goofy frog head poking out of the 70% cool water-30% dirt mixture of his flower pot. Somehow that frog found his way into his flower pot to cool off on that hot day, and his flower pot, which initially was the butt of his classmates jokes, was now main attraction for the rest of the day.

The frog was gone the next day, but my student didn't want to redo his flower pot... he did, however, put fresh water in it everyday "just in case the froggy wanted to come back and cool off"... Precious, such a sweetheart