Party and Trees
Happy birthday to you,
happy birthday dear E and Z,
Happy birthday to you!
Today we had special guests over in Flowers class; E, M (E’s mom and dad) and A (Z’s dad) visited us! We also talked about what is happening in the Amazon rainforest and learned some big words.
Morning Free Play
We sorted a box full of beads, cloths, pebbles and buttons. We also worked on numeracy using playdough, spaghetti, beads, pegs, sand and pinecones.
Party
When our guests arrived, we were not quite sure why they were here perhaps because the party had two meanings-one that made us all happy and the other that made some of us a little bit sad.
1. They were here to celebrate E and Z’s six-year-old birthday! We realised that the birthday friends were not ready for the celebration, our friends helped put a special crown on their heads, gave birthday cards and blew a candle on a cupcake! Y shared that she feels “excited” and L, “happy” to have a birthday party. So we sang If you are happy and you know it and suggested some actions to do with our friends. E suggested to snap our fingers and Z, nod our heads and B, blink our eyes! We also tried to say happy birthday in different languages-English, Japanese, Chinese and Norwegian and we even counted to six in English, Japanese, Tagalog, Korean, French and German! We also wanted to ask E, M and A share some anecdotes on baby E and Z.
M: When E was born, we didn’t have a baby yet. She was so small but now she’s already six!
W: My baby was born on a sunny day. The sky is a bit cloudy.
E: We’ve been waiting for E for a long time.
Nanako: Where was E before she was born?
K: Inside mummy’s tummy. My mummy had so so big tummy.
A: Z used to love music and when we put on the music he used to kick inside the tummy. Here is baby Z (showing a picture on his phone) and he used to sleep all day.
2. They were also here to say goodbye because E and Z who are so big now are ready to move onto a big school, starting from April! We can have mixed feelings about leaving one place and going to a new place.
E: I feel sad because I’m leaving the school.
Z: (I feel) Happy because I’m going to a new school because I can meet new friends.
Nanako: What would you like to do when you go to the big school?
E: Make friends and play.
Z: Play...dodgeball.
It is natural for anybody to feel sad to say goodbye to our friends and at the same time, look forward to meeting new friends. We sang our Goodbye song and we gave our gifts to make sure E and Z remember our names and faces :) You know what, we also received gifts from them and we put them in our bags! It was such a bittersweet feeling. Luckily we have two more days to spend with them next week!
Circle Time
We started off watching a clip about the Amazon, not the delivery company but the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Well done J, Amazon is also known as “the lungs of the planet” and this Amazon is in trouble...why? R who was watching the clip said that people “cut trees” and even read the word out on the white board: DEFORESTATION.
Nanako: Why do you think people cut trees?
B: They were cutting trees because they wanted more houses.
A: Because they want to make things like boats.
E: For food.
R: Because they want to make tables.
W: If we cut the trees, then that’s where the animals live. If we cut the trees, the animals need to go some other trees but the trees are gone.
To imagine how many trees are being cut every day we set a timer and we closed our eyes. Four friends thought it was ‘short’ and seven friends thought it was long,’ We actually had our eyes closed for one minute and imagine, every one minute, 36 football fields worth of trees are being cut everyday somewhere in the world! The size being so big it was almost hard to imagine the enormity of the deforestation happening on our earth.
Nanako: What is the problem with cutting down trees?
K: Like tree is Tokyo Tower. If you cut and car is passing, tree will fall on it.
B: We cannot kill cows because we need milk.
The first consequence of deforestation of course is damaging the biodiversity as William suggested earlier and today we learned two more things…
1. We talked about how when we breathe in, we are breathing in OXYGEN as R pointed out and breathing out CARBON DIOXIDE. In fact, in our daily lives, we are emitting a lot of carbon dioxide, when breathing out, farting, riding a car, cooking breakfast or taking a bath. When we counted the number of arrows of carbon dioxide going out, there were six and there were two arrows of oxygen going in meaning we are producing much more carbon dioxide than there is oxygen. We looked at a picture of the earth and the atmosphere, B pointed out that the earth is protected by a thin layer like a “shield.” We learned that when there are too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere it leads to a very serious problem called the global warming. Then, we learned that trees are miraculous machine that changes carbon dioxide into oxygen (PHOTOSYNTHESIS) and if we cut down trees, it means that we have less machines producing oxygen.
2. We learned that trees play a big part in the water cycle (what we learned about last week) because trees drink water from the ground and release it out as vapor through a process called TRANSPIRATION which is then collected as clouds in the sky and through precipitation, water drops back on the ground. If we cut down trees…
B: It means it doesn’t rain!
Precisely, deforestation causes a huge problem to our world and although Amazon rainforest may sound like a place so exotic and far away, in fact what is happening in Amazon means gravely to us. As a conclusion, we reminded us the three things we have been talking about that we can do to help save the earth…
1. 4Rs (REJECT, REDUCE, REUSE and RECYCLE)
2. Save the water.
3. Plant trees.
+4. Stop farting!
Well, of course we cannot really stop farting but just like W who commented after letting a wind slip, “oops...I just made carbon dioxide” we can remind ourselves how much we are emitting and what we can do to release less carbon dioxide in our atmosphere!
Park time fun time
We had great fun playing What’s the time Mr. Wolf, Darumansan ga koronda and Rock-scissors-paper train game!
Thank you for another fartful day!
Love, Flowers children xoxo