Just last week I saw this photo on my friend’s Facebook page:

I responded immediately:

This looked like an alien landscape to me. Flowers blooming? Bright colors!? BEES!? I almost felt the need to shield my eyes. Realizing that this was a current photo from Delaware–not some exotic locale–brought home to me how far from spring we still are here. Spring in Maine is just a bit more gritty and subtle than in other places. While others are celebrating new growth and warmer temperatures, we’re still entrenched in winter. Occasional wild temperature swings launch us into hope and then plunge us back down into cold bitter despair. This past week it was in the 40s on Monday and on Tuesday, the wind chill at recess was about 3˚ F. Truth.

It’s hard to be positive or to regard family and friend’s photos of new growth and blossoms as anything other than a slap in the face. Will spring ever arrive?

Then, on Friday, while driving to school, I noticed a couple of orange signs blossoming along the road. Oh, my inner optimist reasserted itself, Frost heave! This is looking promising! For the uninitiated, road upheaval, or frost heave, is a sure sign of changing temperatures and spring coming. (and spine jostling and car damage…but remember, I’m channeling my inner optimist here!)

Not too many miles later, I saw a pile of sad smashed porcupine alongside the road. While I truly did mourn the porcupine’s passing, I couldn’t help but think, “Oh, a porcupine! I haven’t seen one in ages. Spring must be coming!” (I really did think this!)

Also, the sun is getting noticeably warmer and the gritty snowy ice banks are melting. If you look just right, there’s even some beauty to be found there.

On a sweeter note, I’ve also seen sap buckets sprouting on the maple trees along our road. Soon the playground will show signs of spring as well — in fact, it thawed beautifully just the other day!

Before you know it, thin pale stalks of legs and delicate ankles will be visible, too! We’ll be arguing with kids about the need to wear a coat (Oh–wait–we’re already doing that!) and explaining that while temps in the 40s are worth celebrating, they don’t necessitate shorts wearing.

Signs of spring in Maine may be just a bit more gritty and subtle than in other places, but things are definitely looking up, if you just know where to look. Spring is definitely on its way!

I mentioned in a recent post that I’ve been allowing my brain to free range on the commute to school. Instead of listening to an audiobook or to the radio, I’ve been letting silence reign in the car. I find my mind moving all over the place, jumping from thing to thing to thing. Here are a few of the thoughts that popped into my mind on the way to work yesterday before school-related thoughts took over:

1. I really love spying hawks along the highway. I wonder how many I’ve driven past without seeing them. I wish I’d paid more attention to the birds over my life. I’m trying to make up for that these days.
   “Hi, Hawk!” I say aloud as a I pass one. I repeat it again shortly afterward when I pass another, admiring the long rays of the rising sun on his breast, adding, “Aren’t you a beauty!?”
2. Is it possible that the guy in that blue Honda doesn’t realize that he’s on tailgating the person in front of him? Maybe instead of being aggressive or in a hurry, he’s just spaced out. Maybe his brain is free ranging, too.
   OK. Now that guy over there in that red truck is just a total jerk. No two ways about it.
3. Do aggressive four square players become aggressive drivers? OMG, the thought of some of the current fourth graders as drivers is really, really frightening. I consider all the aggressive cherry bombing and my thoughts go straight to road rage. I make a concerted effort to change the direction of my thoughts.
4. I miss my sisters. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve seen any of them. We Zoom weekly now but that’s not really seeing, and we haven’t breathed the same air in…1 1/2 or 2 …years? How can that be? I ask Siri to text my oldest sister, “I miss you!”
5. The sky is amazing this morning. Patches of gray clouds are purple lit from below. I love watching the evolution of the morning sky, but seldom spend time looking at the night sky. Why is that? The last few evenings, my daughter has come in from work at around 7, announcing, “The stars are gorgeous tonight!” I’d like to take time to look at the night sky. If only the wind would die down or the temperatures would rise. Somehow it feels exponentially colder to me when it’s dark outside. Is that a thing?
6. I remember reading a book that described the night sky as similar to sparks of light shining through a colander. The author said it much more poetically than that. I think it was in “Transatlantic” by Colum McCann. I need to reread that passage. Oh, I’m pretty sure I listened to it so that could be tricky. Maybe I can check it out when I go to the library tomorrow.
7. Could I write a poem that goes like this?:
   Once I read a book
   where the stars shone
   as if through a colander
   in the sky
   Now when I gaze
   heavenward
   all I can think about
   is spaghetti.
   
   This strikes me as incredibly humorous and I laugh out loud and quickly ask Siri to take a note so I don’t forget.
8. I spy the moon, pale in the morning sky, and it seems like it was just full and now it’s waning so quickly. Somehow that makes me feel a bit sad. I know for sure that space will always dizzy me with its numbers and entrance me with its glories. How do people make sense of these huge numbers anyway? This universe? I’m not sure I even want to try to understand it all. Is that a bad thing?

And so on and so on and so on….

Thanks for joining me on my free ranging commute. What do you think about on the way to work?

We’ve been working face-to-face in a continually evolving hybrid model all year. In general, classes were split into two smaller groups and one group came on Mondays and Wednesdays, while the other group came on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They alternated Fridays. Some students (students of staff, students receiving SDI, etc) came all 5 days. We created daily agendas that spelled out, in detail, what work to do on their “at home” learning days. It’s been intense but we’ve gotten used to it. The kids have been amazing!

During the year, other grades in our Pre-K-8 school with smaller class sizes have been able to come back full time. Finally, this past Monday, after much consideration, creative thinking, organizing, and the completion of a new modular unit built with CARES money, all 3rd and 4th grade students came back, too. I’m not going to elaborate about the model that we’re in now. Suffice it to say that it’s a work in progress, but after mini-lessons, we’re rotating out small groups of children with an extra adult for independent work in a different space. That way we can continue to have a bit more space for our workshop style of learning. Once again, we’re calling on kids to make big changes and show ongoing flexibility as we work out the kinks.

Prior to Monday, my teaching partner and I put a lot of thought into how to support our students as we build new classroom communities. Many of them haven’t seen each other in over a year. Some of them have never been in class together. Some of them are new to our school this year and have never met each other before. We wanted kids to enter this expanded classroom with a positive lens, thinking about their own strengths and what they bring to the team.

So, on the first day back, after time for greetings and logistical explanations, we carved some time out of our regular schedule.

“Think about the strongest communities you have been a part of–your scouting groups, classes, families, book clubs, partnerships, etc. Now think, what makes them so strong? What makes a powerful community or group?” I asked.

Hands flew up.

“Being kind,” someone offered. I jotted it on the board.

“Listening to each other,” another student volunteered. That went on the board as well.

“Having a sense of humor!”

“Being flexible!”

“Being optimistic!”

Soon we had an impressive list of strengths compiled.

“So, now that we’re all back together, we’re building a new community,” I said, ” and each of us brings many strengths with us. Think about yourself. What is one strength or trait you bring to our new community? You can use our list to help you, or you might think of something else entirely.”

I asked them to depict their contributing strength (or two or three) in words and/or illustrations on a “brick” and then color it.

Here are a couple of finished products:

• 

• 

After collecting them all, here’s what my colleague and I created on the hallway bulletin board between our rooms. We’re still a few blocks shy with some absent students, but we’re pretty pleased.

• 

Today when I get to school, I’m going to add the final words in the upper right corner:

Building On Our Strengths!!!

I can’t wait to see the kids’ reactions when they come in this morning and see what they’ve already created together.