I watched as the first grade class bound up the stairs towards the playground. We had made it to first recess. I tugged my jacket a little tighter. I thought it was going to warm up more today. I thought of my daughter Adi and her daisy fleece. She hadn’t found her heavier jacket in time this morning. I hoped she wasn’t cold.

As I followed the kids to the playground, I noticed that they were all huddled in one area, studying something on the ground. As I got closer, I realized it was ice. Was it chunks that had fallen from the trees after Saturday’s rain or had our custodian been out here chopping ice? Either way, it captivated the students. One student ran by, ice chunk in bare hand, exclaiming, “It’s an energy crystal!” The ice seemed to amuse the majority of kids for quite a while…until it didn’t. There was ice hoarding and ice stealing. “Roman is the real problem,” one student tried to explain to me. “He’s the leader. You should go talk to him.”

Recognizing that the ice was no longer fun and there was no way I could problem solve or coach problem solving with all these kids in the few minutes we had left-I declared, “The ice is closed.” Some kids seemed relieved. Others let their disappointment show. “You can still look at it,” I explained. “Just no more touching.” That’s when I saw Fox try to stuff a few pieces of ice into the chest pocket of his coat.

A few minutes later as we rounded the kids up to go back inside, Stefan appeared at my side, eyes full of tears. “What’s wrong?” I asked, worried I had missed something.

“Do you think we can open the ice again for second recess?” he asked, the tears threatening to spill over. “This is my first time in my whole life that I’ve ever seen ice. I’m from Singapore, remember. That’s on the equator.” We spent the rest of the walk inside talking about life in Singapore, the only snow Stefan ever saw was at the ice room at the science center.

I assured him that there would be plenty of more ice and colder temperatures to come…just you wait.