Seasonal Cycle
April 9th, 2018
Dear Parents,
Each season brings a new cycle of life. As we celebrate the end of one season, it celebrates the beginning of another season. We discussed the different seasons today. Mo said, “seasons mean sky”. We thought he was referring to the weather we discuss every day.
Lo said, “winter is cold. Very snowy”. Te mentioned that in winter we can wear “jacket and gloves”, while Ta said, “rain jacket” and Kensei said, “boots”, whereas Mi said, “we need rain jacket when it is cold and rainy”. Wi smiled and said, “we can go skiing”.
We discussed that its Spring season now and many of us shared that we see lots of flowers in the garden now. Te commented, “I love to see Tulips in Spring” and A said, “I love sakura”. Then Er pointed to the flowers in her dress and said, “Look spring”.
We wondered if it’s always going to be Spring and most of us disagreed. We know that seasons always change. Mo said “yes then Summer”. Mi quickly answered, “no jacket, only smock” (we thought she meant sleeveless t-shirt like our school smock) and Wi added, “Hats also caps” and Sa said, “no boots, only sneakers”, whereas A said, “you must wear swimming pants”.
Our teachers mentioned that after Summer season, its Autumn and Mo instantly said, “Halloween” and a few of us added “Thanksgiving”. Some of us mentioned that in Autumn, leaves change color and fall off. Sa and Te said, “yellow, orange leaf”.
We thought about the season after Autumn and discussed that in December it is “Winter” again. Pooja drew for us to see the season cycle. We realised that change is the only constant in life. Seasons always change and it’s a big cycle that goes on and on. We also did a mind map of our discussion that is displayed in our classroom. Then we did a small drama with our teachers to understand the concept of a seasonal cycle better.
We pretended to be a garden. A garden always sleeps in ‘Winter’, as the snow may bury the ground and hence we all closed our eyes and pretended to sleep. Then our teachers nudged us to ‘wake up’ and said, “rise and shine”, its ‘Spring’. We woke up, just like a garden that wakes up in spring. The seeds start to grow, and the flowers sprout from bulbs in the Spring. Then it was ‘Summer’ and just as the plants grew bigger and bigger, we stood up and danced. The garden is brightest in the summer season and the fruits and vegetable grow ripe and many animals and insects visit the garden. Then it was ‘Autumn’ and we sat down, just like the garden that slows down in Fall and our leaves changed color and fell off. We then fell asleep again in ‘Winter’. It was so fun to do the seasons cycle.
Later in the day, we went for a walk to the pond nearby and saw some tulips on the way. In the pond, we saw at least a million tadpoles swimming. We thought that since Spring means time to ‘wake up’, the tadpoles hatched from the eggs. Many of us didn’t know what a tadpole is until Te cleared our confusion “tadpole is a baby frog and mummy tadpole is a frog”. Thank you Te, we will be visiting the pond often to check the growth of the tadpole.
In the gym class, we were so happy to work out with Miyashita sensei. We did lots of warm up exercises and stretching activities for flexibility. A demonstrated her friends how to do table balance activity. Then we were introduced to a new activity -the bear walk race. It was really fun as well as tricky to run fast on our 4s. We also enjoyed the forward roll and backward roll activity. Finally, we played the game ‘Okamisan’, which is like “What’s the time Mr. Wolf?” and when Miyashita sensei said that it was time to eat, we had to run away from him.
During the morning free play, we enjoyed using different shaped foam to make patterns and designs. Many of us played the count and match game with ice cream sticks and few of us also enjoyed painting.
Thank you for a fabulous day! We will see you again tomorrow!
Love,
Little actors in Petals Class
