Hearts for Sweet Beginnings

A rainbow of hearts to start the school year. The hearts were pleasantly quick and fun to sew. I used multicolor rainbow crochet thread so the colors wove through the hearts one after another.

My boy adores orange, so I made him one in his favorite color. He had his first day of transitional kindergarten today. So I tucked a little note inside the heart and placed it in his lunchbox. I couldn't be with him because I taught my own class of students. But I felt closer to him, knowing that he had a little craft to discover in his lunchbox.

For my students, I am creating a story. Our class mascot is a small dragon. I imagine that our dragon doesn't collect gold and jewels like most dragons. No, our dragon, Sparky, collects the most valuable treasures of all. Sparky collects the treasures that cannot be bought with all of the gold in the world. Sparky collects love. And kindness. And joy. And friendship. He saves these emotions in magical glass pebbles that protect the feelings inside.

We also call these pebbles Dragon-Tears, but I don't think that will make sense within the happy story. The pebbles are not Dragon-Tears, they are dragon treasures. The pebbles fit inside the little hearts perfectly. Each student can hold one through the day. For now, we plan to keep them in a basket and put the students' names inside on a watercolored slip of paper. I am sure that students will get attached to their heart and memorize whether they have red, orange, green, blue, or purple.

Perhaps Sparky knows that our students can trusted to care for Love and Friendship and Peace. And by caring for these hearts, the emotions will be nurtured in our class community as well.

A sweet way to bring those gifts into our school year. I am excited to share them with my students. Begin well, travel in joy, learn along the way. Sounds lovely. Rainbow heart lovely.

Sending inspiration your way. I wish you many precious treasures today. :)