Helping Out at School

Today, I came to Farrah's school to put together a class project for them.  Farrah asks me on a daily basis the following:
Farrah:  "When is spring?!!"
Me:  "It's March 20th."
Farrah:  "How many days until spring?!!"
Me:  "Let's count how many days until...MARCH 20TH."
Farrah:  "WHEN IS THE SNOW GOING TO MELT?!!  WHEN WILL IT BE SPRING, MAMA?!!"
Me:  "FOR THE LOVE OF GOD...SOON!!!"

So, I came up with the idea of having the kids in her class each color two flower petals about the size of their hand.  Each day, one of the kids will take a petal and add it to the outer lining of the center of the flower (which has all their little signatures on it) until they reach March 20th.  At this point, they will see how close they are getting to spring...and the questions will stop.  This was possibly a selfish move on my part to get the questions to go away and stay at school, but at the same time ended up being educational, too.

When I was there, I had to go over the reasons why were doing it and ask the kids questions:

Me:  "What does it mean when it's finally Spring?  What happens?"
Child 1:  "Flowers bloom."
Me:  "That's right!  What else?"
Child 2:  "Flowers start to come out."
Me:  "Yep. That's right. Anything else?"
Child 3:  "Flowers on trees start to show up."
Me:  "Yeah, everything starts to blossom.  You want to know what else happens in spring?  Bears come out of hibernation!"
Everyone:  "GASP!"
Me:  "Oh, and bees start to fly around!"
Everyone:  "GASP!"

Hahahaha...I'm awful.  But shit, c'mon.  These kids need to know that they could be leaning over to smell a flower and notice that there is a bee getting it's pollen and has its stinger pointed right at their nose at the same moment they look up and see a black bear charging for them.  They must be prepared!

Anyway, the project was a huge hit and it will assist in getting the kids ready to actually be excited for upcoming outdoor activities.