Instead, three reasons May is the best month ever...
I forget how amazing May smells. Coming home from a trip to New York when I was about 12 was the first time I realized - the place I live smells really nice. Especially in May.
Also, since they were on my camera, two final art projects with the kids. I really wanted to do something that involved both the individual and the entire class for the younger ones. So the pre-Ks did these flowers. First we each drew our own stems, grass, and... flower middles. Whatever they're called. Then the kids dipped their thumbs in paint, stamped a thumbprint petal, and passed their picture to their neighbor. It was a bit of a nightmare to get the passing and the stamping coordinating. I ended up doing "Simon Says" to get them to stamp and pass at the same time, and felt oddly like a coxswain on a rowing crew. But at the end, each kid had a cute picture that everyone helped make.
For the Kindergarteners, I decided to do something that wouldn't require much planning or preparation. First we read a story about a rainbow, and I told them we'd be making our own rainbow, but it would require teamwork. Each kid picked a piece of paper out of a jar; each piece of paper had a color written on it. The kids were given magazines with instructions to only cut out images in their color. Two of each color x three classes, and I had six of each of our color wheel colors. Then on Thursday, I put them up in the cafeteria.
