Our families are all unique

We are all special! We have been learning a lot of things that make us special and today is a day to learn another special thing about us. It is called our family. Each of us have our own family. Before Vieda read us a story about families, she let us talk about what we think “family” is.

M: Is Mommy and Daddy.
K: Mom
A: I like it when I’m in family.
K: I like it everyone. My Mommy, my Daddy and school friends and teachers ….is all my family! Sometimes elephants and giraffes can be in our family.
A: Family means everyone is my family. Like, my family and my school friends, Buds teachers, Petals teachers and Flowers teachers is my family.
L: I love my Mom. My family is Mom, T, Dad and Grandma.
C: Everyone is my family. My school friends and the people at my home is my family.
K: My family is my Mom. I love my Mom.

After we shared our ideas, Vieda put different people figurines and asked us to pick one whom we think is part of our family. Some of us picked a mom, a dad, a baby, a grandpa and even a police officer! C named his figurine as himself because he said, “ It’s me! Because I’m part of my family!”. Now that we had an idea who could be in our family, we talked about some of the responsibilities of each family member. We had a remarkably interesting discussion about this topic!

A: Mommies give you hugs. (chose Mom)
A: Baby plays with Mom and Dad and me. (chose a baby)
Y: Mom makes yummy foods so I love my Mom. (chose Mom)
K: Grandpa teach you pro wrestling. (chose Grandpa)
C: I help my Mom at home. I fold the clothes. (me!)
K: Because I love the police officer because I want to be a police officer. (chose the police officer)
Y: I think the police officer is taking care of her (K’s) family.

A raised a point when she said that, “ My Mommy is crying because her child didn’t do as she said”. When C heard that, he mentioned, “She (mom) is furious (when I don’t listen to her)”. It seems like we are quite observant with our Mom’s feelings. K mentioned, “ My Mom is sad (when I don’t listen to her.), but she is usually happy and we like it when she’s happy”. Yes, we all like it when our Mom is happy!

We moved to another activity where we counted the number of people/animals who are in our family. Our friends count their fingers as they recall who belongs to their family. Here is what we have come up with:

C: There used to be 3 in my family, but there’s a baby in Mommy’s tummy so it will be 4 soon.
K: I have 5. Mommy, Daddy, R, K and me!
A: My brothers, my Mommy, Daddy and me so that’s 5!
M: Mom, sister Y, Dad and me. It’s 4!
A: My family is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Big boy, grandpa, grandma, H, H, Dad, Mom and me.
K: My family is T, A, J and me!
L: 6! Mom, Dad, brother, me, Grandpa, Grandma.

Wow, we noticed that family comes in different sizes. Also, as C mentioned about his family, the family size can change when a baby arrives! Just in time was the story that Vieda read to us about families. We saw families can be the same but at the same time different. We are excited to find out more in how they could be the same and different as well.

For our story time, our attention was drawn to a family picture where the Mom was sitting on a wheelchair. M believed that perhaps her legs got hurt when she bumped into something. There was another family picture where it was the child who sat on a wheelchair. Looking at that, we realized that regardless of who among the family members is injured or sick, they are still a family! On the other hand, K pointed out a family picture where there are Mom, Dad and 2 cats and they are also a family! Then, A wanted to know about a family picture where there were only a sister, Dad and a brother because the mother had passed away. Our book says that the Mom has died. When K heard that, he said, “ Died means that you can’t be at home anymore because you need to be in the hospital. And even without a Mom, they are still a family.

We are very glad to get to know more about families. It is always great to see how other families can be different from ours in terms of size, appearance, and structure, but then similar in a lot of ways. We are so excited to talk more about our families and get to know more about other families as well!

Lots of love,
Flowers Class