Our parents can do anything

Ola! Mi amor! Today, we had so much energy and our teachers were so ready to have wonderful day with us. One of the  things that we noticed that was a bit different from what we usually played in the classroom was the magnetized shapes. The shapes were like sticking together in order to make a new figure. It was really great to see our friends who are very engaged and they tried to create their own special figure. We’ve made a tower, a pyramid and cubes! It is more like making 3-D shapes with these special toys.

Another thing that we enjoyed playing was the pegs and boards. We can always get creative with it by taking the boards and attaching the pegs on it. Our friends were so into it that they even showed their teachers what they made. One said that he made a car and the other said that he made an airplane with wheels. It is too cool to have theses toys in the classroom. We also had the button straps. This toy helped us to get more familiar with how the buttons work. We tried to match the buttons accordingly and Erika showed us how it’s done. We copied how she did it but with our little fingers and thumbs, we still need more time to practice.

On the small tables, we’ve got the counting bears. We had the special mats with the four colors—red, yellow, blue and green. We tried to match and put the bears in each box and viola! We did it pretty easily. Our friends could get creative on how to play with it then, they slid the bears down on the slide cushion until everything was on the floor. We also liked to shake the  bears in the container and it was making a big sound! This is how Buds class play. We always experiment, we always discover, we’re always curious. These  are good traits and we’re proud of them.

The other table was with a Montessori equipment. Here, we tried to put the little cones together and tried to match their colors too. Our friends  loved to move it around and the equipment looked like the shape of the bowling pin.

When free play time was over, we cleaned up the toys by putting them in a special bucket. We also watched Chiaki on how she put water in it and they’re ready for washing.

We did some music session again with John and today, we sang some songs and read the book called, “The Little Blue and The  Little Yellow” by Leo Lioni. It was a good book about color mixing. After reading it, John actually took out some paper and crayons so that we could have a little bit of experiment. We tried red and yellow and they made orange, red and blue made purple, yellow and blue made green. One of our friends said that he remembered the science experiment that we did on Zoom last time and  it was about the olive oil, water and some colors. It was amazing how some of us could still remember this activity even though it was a long time ago.

We had our snacks as usual and then played with our own created forts in the classroom. We lined up the chairs and put a big cloth on top of it. Our children were fascinated to see that we could actually have a castle in the classroom. Everybody was like saying, “BIG CASTLE!” Indeed, it was a magical experience for our friends to have. We even fixed the roof when it fell off from the chair and we did a fantastic job in solving and how to repair the whole castle.

We gathered around again for our circle time and this time we talked about John’s skirt. Do you remember that one of us said that  only girls can wear a skirt? But today, it was a different story because John who is a boy wore a skirt to school. Definitely, it was something we love to look at. Some of us said that it was pretty/beautiful and some others said that it was like a princess ballerina. John actually bowed in front of us like a prince/princess and turned around like a ballerone/ballerina. We copied what he was doing and each of us had a chance to do the bow with him gracefully. Now, we are  starting  to think that we can wear just like anything we want to wear and it’s beautiful that everyone is appreciating and respecting everyone’s preferences in clothes.

Another topic that we talked about today was breaking the barrier of gender-roles. Well, it seemed that it was a complicated concept to teach our friends but we all started the conversation with questions.

Question 1: What does mommy do at home?

M: She works.

H: She cooks.

E: She bakes.

A: She plays with Patrick.

S: She bakes and cleans with me.

Question 2: What does daddy do at home?

M: He plays with me.

S: He cooks and washes the clothes with me.

E: He cooks.

A: He cleans.

H: He cleans and plays with me.

We all had different thoughts to express during our lesson but when John  showed some pictures of daddies cleaning, cooking and doing the laundry—some of our friends said that their dads do that too. When he showed pictures of mommies fixing the car and repairing the cabinet, our friends reacted, “My mommy do that too!”

It’s nice to hear that our children are becoming aware of what mommies and daddies do at home. We all have our responsibilities and showing these to children can create a positive impact on how they view the society when they grow up. It is true that what the children see, they will follow. They have ears to hear and eyes to see and they have their purpose of doing what they think what is right.

For our teachers, we all know that exposing them to gender equality can create a better place for all of us to live in where there’s respect, kindness, love and care everywhere. It is also okay that our children will understand that some people will think differently but it is our intention to build a foundation on how to treat others with no pre-judgment, with fairness and with just.

Thank you so much Ohana and have a wonderful day!

Lots of love,

All of the children from Buds Class