Baikinman Doesn't Like Clean Things

          … L told us during circle time. She was right; we were discussing something important– it’s called a virus (Baikinman, for those who don’t know, is a character from the popular Japanese TV show for children called, Anpanman. Baikin, in Japanese, means “germs”).

Our teachers, who have been wearing masks sine we arrived in school, told us that a virus is something that, when it goes inside the body, will make us sick. The name of the virus that has been going around the world is called coronavirus, and it is dangerous. That’s why we have to make sure we always wash our hands and keep clean. So, we now have some extra steps to do before we do our morning jobs:

1. Change your shoes.

2. Go inside the classroom and put down your backpack.

3. Wash your hands.

4. Do your morning jobs.

We are also going to take home our towels today.

“It’s Friday!” R exclaimed, which made the teachers giggle. Boy, do they wish it was already Friday– but, no. Our teachers said that since viruses can live for a long time on things, then it can live on our towels, too. That’s why we are going to use paper towels instead whenever we wash our hands. Our teachers will also let us take home our blankets every Friday, just to be safe.

Pauline showed us a picture of the coronavirus– it looked interesting, with blue, red, and green colors. It looked nice– but they are not nice. It can make you really sick. That’s why we again talked about how we need to wash our hands when we pick our nose (Which can’t be helped sometimes– so our teachers always tell us to clean our noses with a tissue instead), put our hands inside our pants (Because sometimes there’s something itchy and we want to scratch), put our hands inside our mouth– basically anything that we do that involves getting dirty.

“You can scratch your nose from the outside,” H said.

“We need to make lots of bubbles. Baikinman doesn’t like bubbles,” L said.

“We need to use soap,” Li said.

“I have a princess book, it has something about washing hands,” M said.

“That sounds great! Maybe you can share it with your friends tomorrow?” Pauline suggested.

“But it’s in Japanese,” M replied. That’s alright; maybe Sayaka or Nimo can read it to us.

Our teachers also said that we won’t be able to go to the park, so as to avoid touching playground equipment. There are always a lot of people who go to the park, and we are not sure if they have clean hands or not, or if they are sick or not. We can only go for walks– or, if we go to the Step Park, then maybe we can just play in the green area.

Our teachers told us that the coronavirus started to spread in China. T pretended he was from China, and Pauline pretended to say “Oh my! He’s from China! Yuck, virus! Go away! Go away!”

“Do you think it’s alright to say that?” Pauline asked. We all said no.

“It’s not okay,” A said.

“Do you think it’s showing respect?” Pauline asked. We all said no. Our teachers said that saying that will give anyone an “ouchie” heart, making them feel really sad. We all said that we need to show respect! Our teachers asked, what if the virus came from their own country? Do they want other people to tell them the same hurtful things? We all said no.

“If there’s nothing nice, we need to keep quiet,” M said. Absolutely right! If we have nothing nice to say to people, then we should keep quiet– so that we don’t hurt their feelings and give them “ouchie” heart. Virus or no virus– no matter where we come from, no matter how different we may seem, in the end, we are all just the same. So– RESPECT!

We went outside for a walk today, and we went to the temple where we had our train ride before. We saw that the sakura tree there has started to bloom! WOW! Then we took a walk to the pond, but we saw nothing– the water was dirty, and was color green.

“Wait, I see something! Something dark! Look! Eyes!” Sayaka said.

“Something’s under the water!” Nimo said.

“Maybe it’s a monster!” Pauline said. “I am the monster of the pond. Who is throwing gomi in my pond?” she said while using a scary voice. Sure enough, we saw some gomi floating. Sigh. People need to remember to look after our Planet Earth and NOT throw gomi just anywhere!

So that concludes our very informative Monday. We didn’t have gym class today as it was a Japanese holiday.

How about you? How was your day?

Love,

All the vigilant little children in Petals Class