Spring coming - children's program

For March's Children's Program we celebrated the coming of... Spring? 

Amidst a blustery late winter/early spring snowstorm, we each shared something that we've been noticing about nature, including how the weather keeps changing its mind a lot from warm and muddy to cold and snowy and back again, as well as the changing songs of the chickadees, the return of the robins, and the lengthening of the daylight. We then re-read and acted out the book 

When Spring Comes by Kevin Henkes and illustrated by Laura Dronzek, in which the grass turns from brown to green, empty gardens become luscious beds of flowers and leaves, children muck around in the mud, and, of course, the weather changes its mind a lot! 

We then planted some seeds of one of Taihaku's favorite flowers, zinnias, for the Temple garden, which we will eventually get to plant into the garden together. 

We used our bodies to explore the changing energy of the seasons, from quiet winter to antsy spring to raucous summer to frenzied fall and back to tranquil winter once again. 

We ended by listening to the sound of the Temple bell and then made a bell of our own voices sounding OM.