Animals Be Like....
We started our circle time by singing our greeting song that talks about feelings. It was interesting to hear that our feelings were not the same with our friends. And talking about feelings, we discussed about whether animals have feelings, too. Ch thinks animals have feelings because they make strange noise when they are mad, while Au happily shared that being mad is a feeling therefore, animals have feelings. On the other hand, Ky feels that animals are happy when you give them food, and happy is a type of feeling. We agreed then that animal must have feelings like we do.
One of the feelings that was highlighted in our discussion was that of animals being happy when fed. Shelley shared her idea that perhaps, “Animals cook their own food”, to which Flowers replied, “No!”. How do the animals eat if they don’t cook?
Z: Animals do not know how to cook.
Ch: There’s people that feed all the animals at the zoo. There are times when to eat like lunch, snack, and dinner.
K: They’re called zookeepers.
Vieda: But how about those who don’t live in the zoo? How do they eat?
B: They live far away.
Z: They live in the forest.
K: They find their own food if they’re hungry.
Some of the food that we thought animals eat are the following: eggs, pancakes, meat, vegetables, berries, bananas, apples, and grass.
As we start on a new learning theme this term, we took time in sharing our ideas about animals. We are looking forward to another exciting learning journey about animals and our environment! Please enjoy reading through some of our ideas about animals, their diet and habitat and things that make us wonder about them. We picked one toy and talked with our friends about it.
Ky: Kamakiri (praying mantis) eat eggs and leaf.
Ch: Koala climbs trees to ear leaves. It lives in Australia. I want to know how far it can climb up.
K: Tiger eats meat, zebra, horses, and goats. I want to know how many animals a tiger can eat in a day.
Au: This is shark. Lives in the water. Sharks eat not pancakes. Can sing shark song.
Z: This is a cricket. It eats leaves. I want to know if they can prick people.
B: Panda has black skin and blue eyes. Around his eyes are black circles, too. Pandas live in Tokyo.
We played games using the toys that we picked. Our memory skills and looking eyes were put to a test when we played “What’s Missing?” and Treasure Hunt. For Treasure Hunt, we tried our best to be as quiet as possible so as not to let the animals “run away” from us. Vieda hid our animals around the room. We could only hunt for our own animal, but we could also help our friends in case we find theirs. We did not only make use of our watching eyes, Ky said we also used our brain to find the hidden animals. K mentioned that we were able “learn how to do teamwork because we let our friends know where their animal is when we found it! That’s like teamwork!”.
Talking about animal feelings, we looked at two interesting short articles from a magazine. One pictures two bears fishing for food, and another features two orcas. We looked at them and took turns trying to interpret what the pictures were all about.
B: The two bears can’t share food because they’re so hungry.
K: They want to eat because they’re hungry.
Ch: Salmon is yummy!
A: They are missing the food.
Z: They are trying to eat but can’t reach it.
Then we learned that the bears were siblings. The younger one got his leg hurt so he had been having a difficult time getting salmon. An unusual scene was captured by a photographer when the sister bear took some fish and then placed them right in front of the younger bear. Hearing this, Ch asked, “But isn’t the sister hungry, too?” to which Z replied to, “That is really so nice of her!”.
We learned that orcas stay with their mothers throughout their lives. The picture that we saw was not in fact a picture of mom and son orcas, but instead, two brothers. When the mom orca passed way, the older brother took time in swimming side by side with the brother for some years!
We couldn’t agree more that animals have feelings, too! They show their care and love quite like humans!
We love sushi and seeing a picture of salmon made us a bit hungry! If bears get their salmon from the river, how do we get our sushi?
K: You buy it and then make it.
Ch: You fish them.
Ky: My mom goes to the supermarket and buy everything.
Ch: They cut the fish.
K: I’ve seen a fish heart. In Japanese, it is called shinzou. You take it out, put a stick in the fish and then roast it.
Z: Sometimes the sharks bite the fish before we get it.
Ky: I eat shrimp. I touch it and it move. It was black, but when I eat it, it was red.
Ch: (fish and shrimp) Kill it (so we can eat them).
Ky: What is kill?
Ch: You cut it.
Ky: No, I put it in the nabe.
Za: The restaurant people make it straight and then put it in the pot. Then, the customers take the shell off then eat it.
At the end of our discussion about animals, we were trying to make a connection to the animals that we know that live in their own homes with how some of them end on our dining table. At this point, we do not seem to grasp what happens in between. This might be one of the things that we would be interested in as we dig deeper in our learning about animals.
MORNING ACTIVITIES
We tried our best to do our kakizome which means “first calligraphy” written for the year 2022. Since it is the year of the tiger, we tried to write “tora” and our name in Hiragana. On another table, we drew what we think our daddies like and made a thank-you card for Kenta-san (post office).
We had a wonderful time making lots of things with Lego. We had such a great time that we kept some of our Lego creations on the table. We are excited to add more details with them and of course, to show to our friends who were not here today.
See you all tomorrow!
Love,
Flowers