Of Fried Chicken and the Food Chain

            Our morning activities were filled with lots of conversations about the layers of the soil, the graveyard, and things we like to do. With a small group today, we had a great opportunity of staying in one table and talking about lots of things. We read about the layers of the soil that K had been sharing with us, such as the topsoil, subsoil, parent material, and the bedrock. Wow, those are such big words, but we love learning about big words in Flowers! With underground as a topic, we can confidently say that moles and rabbits cannot dig holes up to the bedrock.

            When we talk about underground, we focused on the underground animals and how they help the trees and the plants. K’s interest was sparked to “investigate” what other things could be done under the ground. He found a book in our library called Up and Down by Wenjia Tang and immediately got fascinated about the graveyard page. This morning, we looked at that page together and talked a bit what it says about coffins and urn. C was quick to point out that “Isn’t it impossible to put a dead man’s body inside the urn because it’s just like a pot! It’s too small”. Then, K had an idea. He said, “Why don’t we check our iPad to see how a dead man’s body can fit in the urn jar!”.  We did and discovered a lot of interesting things.

            A was quite impressed with how Y can complete a puzzle in such a short time. He said, “Wow, how do you do that?!”.  He stood next to Y and tried to observe how he carefully put the puzzle pieces into their proper spots. Y laughed and told A, “But you and me together. We do it puzzle!”. Oh, our hearts melt with such kindness😊

            After a fun park time at Arisugawa Park, we had our circle time.  We saw chicken and worm toys on the table. When Vieda asked us what came to our mind when we looked at these toys, here’s what we told her:       

            K: The chicken eats worms.

            C: The worms actually eat the not healthy things for the trees.

            K: And they eat all the bad things for the plants so they’re helping the trees to be healthy.

            Y: Chicken small mouth so can’t eat worms.

            K: If they don’t see the mouth, why can the worms eat the bad things for the plants? And they don’t have eyes, so how can they see?

            C: Maybe they have tiny legs that you can’t see. They eat through their legs.

  We decided to go back to what we talked about last week.  We recalled that worms do not have eyes and instead have something special on their skin called receptors. Then, we remember that worms may not have eyes, but they a mouth, a brain and 5 hearts!
            Today’s circle time focused on a special chain that is not the usual chain that we are familiar with. It is called FOOD CHAIN. We looked at the toys and then came up with this food chain:

(1) Bad things for the plants are eaten by the worms.

(2) Worms are eaten by the chicken.

(3) Chicken is eaten by the people.

  We requested Y to stand in place of the people for the chain. When he went to his spot, he shared his idea about this food chain. He was firm when he said, “Karaage Lawson , I eat chicken is in cup. Karaage this no (pointed at the chicken toys)”. He strongly emphasized that the karaage (fried chicken) that he eats from Lawson is not the same chicken as the chicken animal that we were talking about. When Vieda asked him why he thought that way, he said,

            Y: My Lawson karaage, it’s not circle. These chickens are oval. The chicken in Lawson cup is white. This (chicken toy) is red. And Lawson chicken is no legs like this. And no head like this, too.

            K: I don’t care about the color because the inside matters. It’s the same chicken. They use a hunter’s gun and kill the chicken and use a knife to eat them. They put a lot in a truck then take them to convenience store.

            We could not seem to agree whether the fried chicken we eat (from Lawson or at home) is the same with the chicken animals, or not. Vieda said that perhaps it would be a great idea for us to dig deeper into where our food comes from. We are very excited to know where the food that we buy at the supermarkets come from.

 Just before lunch time, we read a special big book about a barn. We saw many animals, but one thing caught our attention. We saw not only chickens, but eggs! C said, “Oh, I like boiled eggs! I eat eggs!”. Then, Y looked a bit confused and replied, “Me no eat eggs. Not this egg. Tamagoyaki…but tamagoyaki doesn’t look like this. I don’t eat tamagoyaki. Sota eat. No eggs!”. At lunch time, K and Y showed us their lunch boxes and saw chicken inside! Did the chicken come from the chicken animal? We were not quite sure…

Our circle time left us with two big questions: Did the fried chicken that we eat the same chicken animal that we know? Do the eggs we eat come from the hens? Please feel to share your ideas next week!

Lots of love,

Flowers XOXO