A couple weeks ago, the very fist daffodil of the Season bloomed.
It was right outside the window where I teach and it made me smile every time I walked into my building. Maybe it was a little bit confused, maybe it was a little bit early, but it made me so happy.
Always trying to develop the student's artwork around their work in the classroom and their surroundings, we began working on a Spring collage of a daffodil. It was with a group of students, 5-7 years old, all of whom are the greatest audience members with the most tender hearts. We walked outside to where the first daffodil had bloomed, which now had a handful of neighbors. We studied the shapes of the blossoms, of the leaves, of the stem--breaking the flower down into shapes like "a square with round corners" and "a triangle mixed with a circle." I asked if we should cut just one flower to bring inside with us to study and after a brief hesitation, they all said "yes." One of the oldest children suggested that we should cut the daffodil that bloomed first since it would probably be the first one to wither away; we didn't want to cut one that had just recently bloomed since it still had so much promise.
We brought the flower inside, sat around in a circle, and talked about how we could gently study the flower. I passed it to the first student, a 5-year-old little girl, who picked it up from my palm like it was the tiniest baby bird. She lifted it to her nose and took a massive sniff. "Mmmm, what does it smell like?" I asked.
With closed eyes she said, "It smells like beautiful."
Our backyard, smelling like beautiful.
