Kindergartens Celebrating Spring

Welcome Sweet Springtime – even in semitropical central Mexico we’re happy to greet the warmer days and blooming flowers. Is there anything more delightful, restoring, and invigorating than the smells, sights and sounds of spring.

Here at Lake Chapala, the trees are blooming, the butterflies are floating through the garden and the bees are busily buzzing through the flowers of the avocado and mango trees.

Still, the most colorful and delightful spring sight at Lakeside this time of year are the glimpses we catch of the kindergarten (preschool) children dressed as bees, lady bugs, flowers, trees and baby animals for the annual school Springtime pageants. 

Weeks before the first day of spring, the children are learning their parts for the pageant, mothers are hunched over sewing machines, borrowing costumes from older neighbor children or shopping for precious costumes.

The outfits shown above were featured in a large display at the local WalMart this spring. Those at left are animal jackets. With a pair of tights they’re perfect. The flower dresses, with all their petals are at right. We spotted the outfits below in a downtown Guadalajara shop several years ago. Can’t you just picture those sweet little faces in the middle of those flowers?

Still, while these costumes are cute on the rack and in the displays, they’re nothing until donned by area children. Here are some of the kids I’ve spotted in springtime parades around San Juan Cosalá and walking to school past my home.

Life is always good at Lake Chapala, but when these little spring creatures take to the streets, everyone has a smile on their faces. In the left photo above, the children from left to right are dresses as spring grass, a jacaranda tree with it’s purple flowers and a hot pink butterfly. The duckling and chick in the center picture are precious, but isn’t that a fabulous ear of corn? His red hair just adds to the feeling of corn silk. The children at right represent a bunny, baby leopard and small lion.

What could better welcome to spring could you possibly imagine these pageants and parades?