Football Friday
Friday was yet another busy day in Petals class. So much to do, so little time, but there’s always time for free play though! Being able to freely interact with our friends and playing together is one of the most important moments in our day. Although we’re just playing, we are learning how to cooperate, problem solve, and understanding how to communicate with someone else. It doesn’t always work out so smoothly, but those are all valuable lessons. For today, we had the small lego again so we could finish up our projects we started yesterday. Many of us worked together with a friend, and even if we wanted to build by ourselves, we still had to talk to our friends to share the limited amount of lego pieces we had. On the tables we helped Pauline wash some more toys and continued the sequence card game with Sayaka.
We packed away our toys and then had our snacks. During the middle of our snack time we heard the alarm bell start to ring. Our teachers began shouting, “FIRE! FIRE!” we were told to stop what we were doing and cover our mouths, then start walking outside. We quickly evacuated the school and learned that it was another emergency drill. After our teachers finished counting and recording, we went back to our classrooms and then finished up our snacks.
Sayaka read us a silly book titled, There Was An Old Lady Who Swalloed A Chick by Lucille Colandro. Once all of our friends were ready we gathered into a circle and began our circle time. We requested Nimo to sing the “How are you” song. Before we sang the song, Nimo taught us some more new words. Instead of saying “Angry” we could use Furious and for “Sad” we could say, Upset. We also learned Exhausted, which is another way to say “tired”. We practiced saying the words together a few times, and with that in mind we sang the “How are you” song. It turned out that more than half of our friends were furious, a few upset, and three were happy. However, we knew everyone was happy because everyone was smiling.
We first talked about the drill we just did. Nimo praised us for following the teacher’s instructions and evacuating the school quickly. However, Nimo noticed something that would compromise our safety. He saw some of our friends taking their belongings with them during the evacuation. Nimo even saw someone go back up the stairs to get their shoes. Nimo told us that mommies and daddies can buy new snack bags, water bottles, and shoes, but they will never be able to buy a new “ME”. Carrying our belongings during an emergency uses up one or two of our hands which is extremely dangerous during an evacuation. What’s more dangerous is going back up the stairs to grab our shoes when everyone else is going down. It’s a great thing we practice every month so we can learn about these things, so when the real one comes, we will be ready.
After our talk about the drill, we hopped on an Airplane and took a sudden trip to the USA. U showed the class where USA was on the world map. Nimo is from the USA and he wanted to share a little bit about his country for International Month! When we compared Japan to the USA we noticed the USA is much much bigger! In the US they have deserts, swamps, mountains, and forests. Nimo is from a state called Colorado, and he grew up in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. Then Nimo asked us if we knew what “Football” is. We all raised our hands as it was a very easy question. A said, “It’s a sport where you kick the ball”, everyone seemed to agree. Then Nimo showed us a “Football”, it was nothing like what we imagined. It was a brown oval shaped ball. We learned that in the USA, Football is a completely different sport. Otherwise known as American Football, it is a sport kind of similar to Rugby. Nimo explained the rules a little bit and then told us that the only way to stop the other team from scoring points is to “Tackle” them. Nimo charged into a big green mat and showed us what tackling looked like. Then we all got a few tries at tackling! At first it was very intimidating, but once we knew the mats were soft we would run full speed into it. It was exhilarating!
As much as we could spend the whole day running into mats, our teachers wanted to make sure we had plenty of time outside to run and play. To ensure we had enough space, we walked on over to Arisugawa Park to play tag with our friends! By the time we were back at school we were exhausted and famished!
And just like that our week is over and into the weekend we go! See yall again on Monday!
Love,
Unofficial Petals Football Team 2020