This year’s back-to-school season is like nothing we’ve experienced before.
The coronavirus continues to pose challenges for everyone preparing for the start of school. Navigating health guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including wearing face masks and social distancing, will surely create a different tone and environment in schools across the country. In the midst of all this uncertainty, one teacher decided to make the most of a difficult situation by using creativity to make her classroom a little more welcoming and fun, even if the desks have to be 6 feet apart.
Texas kindergarten teacher Jennifer Birch Pierson transformed her students’ desks into a fleet of colorful trucks. A photo of the inspiring classroom went viral on Facebook and we absolutely love how inviting the room looks for her lucky little students.
According to the Facebook post that showed off her room, Pierson is “making lemonade from some very sour lemons” by taking the plain old desks most of us remember from our own school days and dressing them up. It looks like she used simple materials, such as cardboard and a rainbow of paint colors, to turn the desks into a fleet of vehicles. She even made the required desk shields look like the windshields. So clever!
The photo was shared on the Maybe I’ll Shower Today Facebook page and comments quickly started pouring in. To date, more than 1,000 people have joined in on the conversation. Responses have ranged from support and encouragement to concern and questions about student safety and teacher expenses.
Facebook user Susie McCray Sargent thanked the page owner for sharing the photo and congratulated Pierson for her thoughtfulness and creativity.
“Thank you for making it an inviting place to come especially for kindergarten,” Sargent wrote. “It is so sad and inappropriate to expect kids to not play when we know that’s how they experience the world around them.”
Other commenters wondered how Pierson was able to complete this project under the current circumstances.
“Very creative and sweet, but likely she paid for this little classroom maker out of her own pocket and many teachers are not in a position to do this,” wrote Facebook user Tara Stewart.
Texas currently has nearly 530,000 confirmed COVID-19 cases and almost 10,000 deaths, according to The New York Times. The school year will certainly be a challenge for the state and the entire country. But, it’s refreshing to see teachers still doing all they can to make school feel as fun and safe as possible.
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
