Help Our Earth!

Here, Sayaka was talking about the symbols we see on different packaging.

Good morning! We had some toy trains for morning free play at the back of the classroom. It was so fun to have a long railway so we used the whole space at the back of the classroom. Some of us asked our teacher for paint. Mixing colours, and expressing ourselves through painting is always enjoyable. 

Today's circle time was learning about recycling. We talked about how we can tell if it's plastic or not plastic. Sayaka kept some trash for today’s circle time. She showed them to us. 

Sayaka- What's this?

All- Trash

Sayaka- I wonder if this trash goes to burnable or unburnable? (Sayaka pointed out the container of the soup)

L- I know. (She pointed to the pet bottle)

H-Me too. (She pointed to burnable) because it's food.

C-(She pointed to burnable) it's round

K- I know (He pointed out the unburnable)

I know it is not easy to sort.  Then Sayaka explained how we can tell whether it is plastic or not. She pointed out to the symbol on the package, which had a symbol indicating it’s plastic.-You might find the same symbol on the packaging, food wrapping, bottle caps, food tray, and containers. Sayaka asked if we could find the mark on each of them. She added that there was one trash that didn't have the symbol because it was not plastic. We volunteered to find it. It was a very small logo so we really had to look for it. 

“Why do we need to separate trash?” This is the next question. Separating trash is the recycling process, Sayaka told us. “Why do we recycle?” This is another question and we discussed what if we don’t separate them and have lots of trash.

S- I have space at home

Sayaka- What if we put it in the ocean?

H-it's dirty

Sayaka mentioned that there was a place where people throw trash especially burnable, and it's called a landfill. She showed the picture of the landfill. We had no words to say…there were just lots of trash! Sayaka said that if people don’t recycle trash, there would be more trash. What if we wouldn't have enough landfills in the future and our ocean or forest would be landfilled. We shook our heads and said, “No! It’s dirty!” 

Sayaka briefly explained global warming. To get an idea of global warming, she showed two pictures of polar bears. One is covered by snow and the bears seemed happy. The other one was that there wasn't enough snow for the bear…S commented on the first photo and he said, “It's snow.” R added that it's winter.

The other picture, K mentioned that the bear is in the water, not snow.

Hmmm…Which bear is the happy bear? L mentioned that the first picture of the bear is happy because the bear has mommy and daddy. Also, she said that bears like a lot of snow. “This is what's happing to the polar bear now because the earth is getting warmer.” One of the reasons why our earth is getting warmer is that people use energy to burn trash. So, separating trash properly and recycling will help to reduce trash. Also, it is addressing the climate change issue. 

It was a bit tricky for us to understand today but we could start thinking about what we can do for our earth. Especially, we want to help the polar bears!

After we finished our circle time, we went to the park. All classes came to the green area so we had a lovely time playing together with them. Thank you very much for today and see you all tomorrow.

Love,

All the eco-friendly children in Petals Class