Let's Talk About Landfills!

            Our week was filled with discussion about garbage disposal and landfills. We learned a lot about landfills and were surprised to hear that they are turned into parks. We love parks, so we thought landfills are good. As it was today’s question of the day, we all answered YES, landfills are good! Our question of the day provides us learning experiences such as counting one object at a time and being able to write its matching numeral. It also highlights our friends’ interest in “reading” all the names that are on the board. Of course, it helps us to sound out each letter of the word, so we’ll know what the question is. That’s why we love our question of the day😊

            Before we moved forward to discussing about our question, we had a little time to recall what a landfill is.

            B: It’s for plastic.

            N: The trucks bring the garbage to a flatter place.

            Ch: It’s a place where you put wasted things. The bulldozer spread the garbage, another one bury and another one bring it.

            B: Then they put sand on them and roll it.

            K: They make a hole and then put garbage in it. Then after they put soil over it, they plant trees and put swings to make a park.

We love going to Arisugawa, Step, and Kogai Parks for our outdoor play. When we heard that landfills are made into parks, we thought that that was cool. Perhaps, that’s why all of us thought, “YES, landfills are good”.

            But wait! We have not talked about what goes in with the garbage being dumped in the landfills. We were so eager to hear! First, we paused and think of what things go into the landfills.

            N: Food!

            K: Plastics and plastic bags

            Z: Rainbow toy pony

            B: Dinosaur toys

            Kyi: Paper bags

            Ch: Papers

  Awesome! Yes, these are the things that go into the landfills. We went back to how landfills start by digging a hole in the ground. Then, we remember that we learned that there are animals and bugs who live under the ground. And the worms also help the trees by eating the bad things that are in the ground. We realized that the animals’ habitats are being destroyed when landfills are made.

            N: That’s not a good thing.

            Ky: When we go Chiba house, no one at Tokyo house and somebody come in. I go back and say, “This my house”.

            K: Animals (underground) will run away and make another house. When their house gets destroyed, they will run away again and make another one and again and again.

            K just raised a very good point and made us feel a bit concerned. We learned that names of places or things have the /s/ at the end when it its number is more than one. We checked our question of the day and found out that it said LANDFILLS! Goodness no! More than one landfill means more animal habitats could be destroyed! N shared that we need to build more landfills because people make so much trash.

            We also talked about some of the effects that landfills have on animals. Some animals such as bears (in Canada), coyotes, or dogs get attracted to landfills because of people’s food waste. Unfortunately, animals eat the food waste which hurt their stomach and could harm their lives.

            We have been learning about animals that live underground and those that are in the ocean. We love them! We would like to do things that could help them. One way that we came up with was to “REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE”. Today, we agreed that trying our best not to waste food is a great way to REDUCING garbage.

            At school, we have a tiny black bucket for food trash. The bucket has a plastic bag where we put our trash in. Ky and Z mentioned that it is plastic, and they hope “we can use other things because it’s plastic”. Also, K said that our food that we throw in it will end up in the landfills. How could we try to reduce our food waste?

            Z: If I leave some food in my lunch box, my mommy eats it.

            N: We can keep the food for another day.

            Ky: At lunch time, lots of time. Take your time to finish lunch.

Also, N thinks that “if animals eat food waste, if there’s bugs in them, it will go to the animals’ throat and down their stomach”.  

            Fridays on our Ohana calendar for calendar chart are all marked with fish stickers. Do you know why? Because Fridays are zero plastic day at Ohana. We learned how plastic bags could end up in the ocean harming our animals. Today, we could not believe when we heard that it takes almost 500 years for plastic to break down into pieces (or decompose). Oh my! That’s such a big number, which means that is a long, long time!

            We remember that garbage in landfills is being burned. B said that a “smoke” is being released and it has a special name. It is called methane. For next week’s homework, please share what you will find out about methane gas. We are excited to hear lots of ideas from you!

            For morning activities, we started working on our Hinamatsuri craft. We cut, draw, and glued the parts together to make this beautiful craft. We also played with blocks and drew pictures, too!

            Have a wonderful weekend! See you all on Monday!

Love,

Flowers XOXO