Choosing Kindness

                      We overheard Sayaka saying something to Pauline after gym class, which made her eyebrows meet  in the middle. Even Nimo’s expression turned serious.

“Petals,” Pauline began. Uh– oh. We know that tone. That tone meant something not– so– nice happened again.

“We are a bit upset because something happened during gym class,” she said.

“Yes, Petals, I just had to tell the teachers what happened,” Sayaka said. “I feel sad for Tsurumi– sensei,” she added. The teachers said that some of our friends were being too silly and were not using listening ears with Tsurumi– sensei. We didn’t show respect for him, and he probably felt sad. They also reminded us that he is still our teacher, even if he is not our Petals Class teacher. That’s why we need to say sorry to Tsurumi sensei next week. We should always remember to be nice and kind.

“We have been talking about this for a long time in Petals Class– what is it about?” Pauline asked.

“Respect,” L answered. That’s why our circle time had something to do with choosing what the kind choice will be. Pauline had two bowls, dinosaur counters, and a chopstick and tweezer. She then put a number in front of the bowl, each representing an answer to her question.

“For my first question,” Pauline began. “What will you do if you need to ask help from your friend to put your shoes on?” she asked. For bowl number 6, the answer was, asking your friend, “Help! Help me put my shoes on!” and for bowl number 8, the answer was, “Excuse me? Can you help me put my shoes on, please?” A chose bowl number 8, and so Pauline asked him to put one dinosaur inside the bowl.

“Next question: What if you were fixing your backpack and suddenly, your friend’s backpack falls to the floor?” The numbers changed, and bowl 18 said we should just pretend we didn’t see anything and just leave the bag alone; bowl 23 said we should pick up our friend’s backpack and hang it up on the hook again.

“I choose 23,” M said, and so she put 1 dinosaur on bowl no. 23. 

“Next: What if you are reading a book, and you accidentally tear it?” Pauline asked . This time, we have bowl no. 61, which said we should tell the teacher the truth even if we are scared that they might get angry; bowl no. 83 said that since no one saw what happened, we should just keep it a secret or we can blame someone else.

“I choose… bowl 61,” A said. While he was using chopsticks to put a dinosaur in the bowl, Pauline asked him why he thought it was the good choice.

“Because you are telling the truth,” A replied.

“What does ‘truth’ mean?” Pauline asked.

“It means, you broke the book, you tell the teacher,” C said.

“Don’t say friend’s name,” L said.

The next question had something to do with cleaning up toys. The teachers say “Clean up!”, but there is someone who is still playing and not listening. Bowl 32 says we should tell our friend, “Give me that! It’s time to clean up!” and bowl 48 says we should tell our friend,” Excuse me? The teachers said we should clean up, so let’s clean up, okay?”

“48,” N chose. “Teachers say clean up. We should be nice to friend,” she said. After that, Pauline had other questions like, what do we do if we see a grandma crossing the street and she has trouble walking, and what if we are at home and we are very busy playing but mommy says, “It’s time for afternoon snacks!” We noticed at the end that even if the numbers for each bowl changed, we kept on filling up the yellow bowl with the dinosaur counters.

“Good job, Petals!” Pauline said. “You always made the good choice. You chose to be nice. You chose be kind. I hope you always remember to always choose kindness.” Our teachers added that the reason why they always keep telling us every. Single. Day. About respect, kindness, and being nice, is that they want us to grow up into nice boys and girls, always helping out people. They want us to grow up just like our mommies and daddies, who are always nice and kind.

Before gym class, Sayaka read “Goldilocks and the Three Bears”. Goldilocks, on the other hand, did not choose kindness, and instead, went inside a house that wasn’t hers, ate porridge that wasn’t hers, and even broke things that were not hers. That’s why upon seeing the bear family who owned the house gave her such a fright and she ran away.

For gym class, Tsurumi sensei had us practice our forward rolls on the green mat. We also practiced our jumps and balance as we tried to jump over the garter tied to the chair’s legs and then land on both feet.

We finished our passports with Nimo as our group waited our turn for gym class, and we read some books with him. Yes, finally we can read books, and we promised we would do our best to take care of them.

That sums up our Monday– how about you? How was your day?

Love,

All the beautifully different children in Petals Class