Recreational environmental education

Coming into the community allows me to share education beyond the classroom. Edith and I were so happy to  have the opportunity to volunteer at the Maui Earth Day Festival. The festival was filled with many great speakers such as Doreen Virtue and many booths representing sustainability. In the keiki (children's) section we created a project where the children could create their own flower of peace. As the eternal environment influences the internally environment I found it important to incorporate mindful activities that would allow the children to incorporate both their ability to be creative and reflective. Last year I created a color-coordinated crayon stand. Aesthetically it looks pleasing to the children along with creating a sense of order. They enjoyed sorting the colors and I observe them placing the crayon tips pointing it up, as it was originally placed. Both the crayon holder(from last year) and the world map was inspired by Montessori materials. The activity consisted of creating their own peace flower. They then created a message to the world regarding peace and the environment. As the children wrote their message my mind focused in on sending peace to the world. I mentally did the white flower meditation taught by Amma. The meditation includes chanting for world peace as one imagines white flowers of peace touching every creature on earth. One of our sweet friend's Melissa stop by, she was adored with a white flower.  I felt it was symbolic of my intention for creating peace flowers. I was delighted and we added her flower right next to our peace sign for a short time. I had the children close their eyes and go into their hearts. The children came up with great ideas for example one was "taking care of the bees" . Through protection of bees, mother nature can create more food bridging the nutrition gap world wide. Another child wrote  "don't pollute". Pollution brings up the topic of hygiene and sanitation world wide. These were and are important ideas brought up by the children. The most magical highlight of the days was when I was explaining to the children the different continents and to imagine sending love and peace to every person, animal, tree and plant, a small white flower fell on to their flowers. Through out the day various  white flowers fell  and appeared from the tree above us. These tiny flowers showered and accompanied us as we sent out the intention for peace on this earth.