Weather not permitting

We were supposed to have a picnic on Tuesday.  It was one of those events that was planned out at the beginning of the school year when we handed out the yearly events calendar to the parents.  Well, one can't quite plan for the weather that far in advance.  The weather forecast showed heavy rain for our picnic at the park day.  There was always the slight hope that the weather prediction might be off, or that the rain would come later in the day.  Nope.  It poured.

Enter the desperate need for creativity.

You see at the beginning of each month the kids and I put a little picture on our calendar for each of the events we will be doing.  That way the kids can see our events getting closer each day and they know what to expect and anticipate for the month.  The week before our picnic one of my kids was looking at the calendar and said, "Miss Michelle, six days and picnic."  It was so cute to see him looking at the calendar and counting down the days.  Then a few days later one of the mothers told me how excited her daughter was for our picnic at the park.  Sigh.

Nothing like weather to spoil a highly anticipated event.

But I realized something, which I had been vaguely aware of: kids can be happy despite unfavorable circumstances if you can show excitement and energy for what you are doing.  Kids are so flexible and resilient, it's us adults who can't cope with disappointments or unforeseen circumstances quite so gracefully.

So I did my best.

Armed with a wealth of childhood experiences playing inside during tropical downpours, I felt fairly equal to the task.  The first thing I did was get a huge piece of green paper and told my kids to get their markers.  I told them that since we couldn't go to the park, we were going to draw our own park.  I proceeded to ask them what we would see at a park.  Then I let them loose to pour out their imaginations on paper.  While they drew, I proceeded to string up a large tarp over half our classroom in order to create a tented area.  I rearranged all the toys and furniture so we would have a semi-enclosed area that no longer resembled our regular classroom.  I also found a large paper cut-out of a tree that another teacher had discarded and put that on our door.  And when my kids had done a splendid job on our park mural (which ironically included rain :) I put that up on the wall.  Then I proceeded to get out a big blanket for the floor.

And here's the part I love...

As I put the big green blanket down on the floor under our tent one of my kids said, "Miss Michelle, that's grass."  I said that was a good idea.  After that our classroom changed.  The fan became the wind and the long fluorescent lights above our tent served as the sun.  I hadn't done much to change our classroom.  When I look at pictures, it doesn't look spectacularly like a park or anything.  But my kids allowed their imaginations to transform our little classroom into a fun new place.  That's one of the amazing things about children: the ease with which they can imagine their ordinary world to be extraordinary.

We didn't go to the park.
We were trapped inside by torrential rain.
And we had a fun time.

The kids were excited to lay out their individual plastic sheets on our "grass" and open up their lunches and share their snacks.  We had a good time.  And weather permitting we will go to the park later this month when we take our field trip to the fire station.  I am so blessed to have the opportunity to learn from these kids.  I hope to attain some small measure of the grace with which they can meet unexpected circumstances and I hope to continually renew my imagination to share in the wonder they see in the world.