TLC (Tender Loving Care) for Everyone and Everything
March 18th, 2019
Dear Mom and Dad,
Today is Monday, yet we have no Miyashita sensei today. Like he explained last week, he has an important meeting. We’ll see him after spring break, and we’ll miss him!
X was back today after her vacation last week. “I went skiing,” she told us happily. It was nice to get to play with her again!
Speaking of playing, today we were more interested in playing with our kitchen toys. “Excuse me, can you help me take out the table, please?” Y asked the teachers. Z commented, “We haven’t played in the kitchen area for a long time.” We were busy having tea time, washing veggies in the sink, and microwaving food. Some of our friends were inspired to dress– up, since our costume rack was just beside the kitchen. They put some funny hats while cooking food.
The weather was so beautiful, so that meant park time. But, before that, we had circle time. Kiki excitedly talked to us about how in May, she will be going to visit our Cambodia friends and help them; she will be also giving them the toys that we brought for them. It sounds exciting, and we hope she can take a video of our friends over there! We’d surely love to see them– maybe we can make a video, too, so we can say “Hi!” to them!
After that, Pauline read a book about seeds. The pictures were beautiful. We learned that they can come in all different sizes and shapes and colors. They need soil, because that’s where all their yummy food is; water, because they’re like us who become “parched” (Another vocabulary added to our list of big, fancy words); and air, because we just can’t see it, but they inhale– exhale like us. We usually dig a hole and put seeds in it, then water it. But, sometimes, plants and trees don’t need our help, and we let nature run its course. Some seeds just fall on the ground from the trees and plants, some seeds are carried to soils in different areas by birds and insects, and some seeds have hair– like things on them so that they can be picked up and carried by the wind to other places. Sometimes, we inhale them, and—
“— they grow inside our nose.” Pauline said. This made us stop for a second, and then our response was a mixture of laughter and “Noooo!”
“We’ll go to the hospital because our nose will get bigger and bigger,” W commented.
“The plant will grow inside our body and the doctors will take it out!” V said. Pauline broke her serious façade and laughed. “Just kidding!” she said. “Remember, seeds need the soil because it has their yummy food? I think we don’t have that inside our body,” she said. Maybe that’s why during spring time, a lot of people have allergies because of inhaling the seeds? I’ve noticed that a lot of friends are sneezing a lot these days, and we’ve had to say “Bless you!” a lot of times!
We also saw from the book that the baby plant is coming out of the seed; Kiki said that it’s just like mommy’s tummy– if the baby becomes too big for mommy’s tummy, then it’s time for the baby to come out. Q animatedly described again what happened when his mommy gave birth, “It’s like baby from mommy’s tummy go ‘Whoosh!’”
Pauline read the book about seeds because she said that today, we were going to plant new flowers in our Ohana garden in the step park. Sure enough, when we got there, Flowers Class was already there, and Hisami was helping out the children to plant. She also helped us out when it was Petals Class’ turn. Some of us were a bit wary with touching the soil, and some were doing it with gusto. I think Sayaka and Kiki took a picture of the flowers– they were so beautiful! We remembered what we read from the book during circle time, and we were careful to show our plants some love and kindness by watering them after we planted them, and by not squashing them without feet, or plucking the flowers from the plant. They’re just like us, like our friends here in Ohana and in Cambodia– they also need our love and kindness.
So, that’s all for our Monday– how was yours?
Love,
All the TLC (Tender Loving Care) children in Petals Class