Pinwheels for Peace, A Milton Tradition

Pinwheels for Peace is a project that originated with two art teachers from Florida in 2005. Originally conceived as a way for students to express their feelings about peace, today thousands of children in schools around the world make pinwheels, decorate them with peaceful images, and plant them in groups on September 21, International Peace Day.

Why a pinwheel? A pinwheel is a beloved childhood symbol meant to evoke a simple state of joy. The spinning of the decorated pinwheels symbolizes spreading thoughts of peace. 

Longtime Milton School Library Media Specialist Barbara Mehlman brought the Pinwheels for Peace project to Milton in 2018 as a STREAM (Science, Technology, Reading, Engineering, Art, and Math) lesson.  That first year, children came with their classes to the library, and she would ask them to talk about what peace meant to them. They used words like "love," "kindness," "family," "yoga," "the beach," "no fighting," and "countries getting along."  Then they read and discussed a story. In 2018, it was The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf. In 2019, it was Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace by James Proimos. Next, the children assembled and decorated the pinwheels with words and images of what peace meant to them, and they planted them on the front lawn of Milton School. 

The project continued during COVID as an asynchronous activity. When school was remote, Ms. Mehlman sent the classroom teachers two videos. The first was a screencast where she read The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson.  In the second, she explained Pinwheels for Peace and demonstrated how to make a pinwheel. Then she sent a link with a pinwheel template. And so it was that in September 2020, parents dropped off their child's pinwheels in a box outside the school!

In more recent years, Ms. Mehlman has read a different book to each grade. She read World Pizza by CeCe Meng to the Kindergartners;  Paulie Pastrami Achieves World Peace by James Proimos to the first grade; The Story of Ferdinand by Munro Leaf to the second grade; and The Peace Book by Todd Parr or The Peace Bell by Margi Preus to third grade. She chose Wangari's Trees of Peace by Jeanette Winter for the fourth graders and Four Feet Two Sandals by Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed for the fifth graders. 

Ms. Mehlman noted that many children chose to draw peace signs or flowers on their pinwheels, and some draw rainbows, the earth, or trees. Other children draw the ocean, books, and their family, very often including their dogs. Some children draw a soccer ball or a basketball. Whatever their choice might be, Ms. Mehlman says, “we talk about how each person can think of something different when they think of peace and what makes you feel peaceful.” She added, “the children really like that [the] Pinwheels have become a Milton Tradition.”

To learn more about Pinwheels for Peace, click here.

Barbara Mehlman, Milton Library Media Specialist, poses with pinwheel artists in 2025

The Milton Pinwheel Project in 2019