“In the flowerbed of my garden, I found the first open daisy” SPRING AS SEEN BY CHILDREN: THOUGHTS, NURSERY RHYMES, AND POEMS ABOUT SPRING

“A spider was making a web in a corner”

“In my yard, I saw a black and yellow caterpillar eating a leaf”

Did you recognize them?

These are the thoughts and poems about spring expressed by some first grade children.

Their names are Cosetta and Anna.

“ Children, who are a very sensitive living barometer, anticipate the explosion of the good season with the need to move, run, jump, play.  This is the first spring of their life that they feel consciously coming… Each child observes the details, ready to grasp every sign of the imminent awakening. ”

Yes, they are the pupils of Maestro Mario Lodi. The songs are taken from “The wrong country”. The chapter is that of The Great Awakening.

We are in Vho di Piadena, in the spring of 1965 and the teacher Mario Lodi is taking the first steps of a pedagogical path that will see him in the following years as a protagonist in redesigning the educational value of the school.

Symbol of his being a teacher, of his work, of his concrete and daily commitment, of collective writing together with his students is the book Cipì. Three years after his death, the work of the master Lodi lives and perpetuates itself in his House of Arts and Games in Piadena.

Gianni Rodari also wanted to pay homage to Mario Lodi with a nursery rhyme. Let’s read together what he writes:

“ Dearest Lodi, I am sending you, to thank your children, this little rhyme, a little rambling, inspired by reading the newspaper, a joke to greet them one by one.

Yours Gianni Rodari. ”

Together

Wheat grows on the Vho

Every day a little.

Fabio goes to look at him

And Katia to measure,

he measures it every morning

with Ileana and Carolina.

Anna says: How tall!

Angelo says: He jumped!

Here is Umberta, here is Fiorella

Who saw a star last night.

Here is Virginio: oh my!

with the gun of Saint Lucia

it will keep the weeds away from the wheat, from the beautiful wheat.

Before it was just a seed:

now the children and the wheat grow TOGETHER.

Have a nice spring everyone!