In our art class, we often celebrate our interfaith-cultural events. This year for the Persian New Year, Nowruz, and the sacred month of Ramadan, first and second graders made this beautiful bird collage.

We looked at a poem by Rumi, written 800 years ago. Rumi was from Persia, born in what is now Afghanistan. The poem has been used in many books. We looked at two of them, 'The Parrot and the Merchant' by Marjan Vafaeian, an award-winning illustrator from Iran, and the second by Mina Javaherbin 'The Secret Message'. Ms. Javaherbin visited our school for a virtual author visit, where students could ask her questions about the story. Inspired by all these events, the first and second grades collaborated on this amazing piece.