Spring is one of my favorite times of year - each morning on my walk I hear birds singing and see rabbits hopping on fresh sprigs of green grass. And the flowers! Well, if you know me at all, you know how much I love flowers and especially irises. I have so many flowers planted around my house and particularly love the 20-something varieties of iris I currently have! This is a perfect rhyme and fingerplay for spring. Fingerplays are so underrated! Teach them to younger students as a fingerplay but bring them back to teach or reinforce rhythmic elements in first grade and as a canon experience for second grade, or add a So Mi or So La Mi melody, eventually adding in an ostinato or two. Transfer the rhyme and ostinati to non-pitched percussion, add timbre changes for each line and allow the students to decide how to perform it. For older students, use these as a basis for melodic improvisation or to walk the beat while clapping the rhythm or add a B Section with the names of egg layers - birds, fish, insects, turtles, platypus, echidna, reptiles, and lizards. Or have small groups of students create a movement story of one type of animal and perform for other groups to guess the animal. So many possibilities! For a better image, click here. Enjoy!